


Who is the biggest Drama Queen here?

by Doctor_Whore



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alpha Will Graham, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Will Graham, Drama, Feral Hannibal Lecter, Feral Will Graham, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Obsessive Hannibal Lecter, Omega Hannibal Lecter, Post-Episode: s02e07 Yakimono, The feelings will flow like Niagara Falls cause emotional constipation isn't my thing, Their pain is my fun, True Mates, a lot of it, now with some plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:42:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctor_Whore/pseuds/Doctor_Whore
Summary: Will Graham leaves the BSHCI after being cleared out for not committing murders FBI accused him of.  But he doesn't go with Jack, instead, he leaves it all behind to come back six months later to Hannibal's delight.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 32
Kudos: 385





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> They rape each other( no idea if that's a thing) for different reasons. You have been warned!

It was already six months.

Six months of no contact with acquitted Will Graham.No note or phone call since then.

After being cleared out for being the murderer of Abigail Hobbs and 3 other women, profiler left everything connected to his old life and left. No one got any information. His boat with lights at the dark sea stood abandoned in Wolf Trap. Dogs were still in Alana's care as Will didn't even go to get them after being released. Dear uncle Jack tried his best to find his leading profiler but to no avail. He tried to pick up Will after his release but was dismissed by him. The new case meant nothing to the changed man that was Will Graham.

The events that unravelled through the time of his incarceration in Baltimore's Institute for the Criminally Insane opened something inside him. Everyone could see that Will become something else, something that he was afraid to become. Hannibal found himself at the crossroads of his indecision in connection with Will. The attempt at his life wasn't a small offence, and he was sure Will would try again but at the same time, he marvelled at the implications of it all.

He was like Pandora herself, who opened the box to release the evil upon the world, vicious and unpredictable, yet at the bottom of it would sit shining hope of Will's potential. The truth of what he hid so well and wanted to quench it inside himself. And now Will Graham was gone from the face of the earth for everyone who knew him.

In a way, life still went on.

Jack had to accept the fact that if Will wanted to come back to the FBI he would when he decided it was time to come back. It didn't sit well with the gruff alpha but there was no other alternative. He already spent a considerable amount of FBI's capital on the search for a run-away.

The last trace was sold Volvo in Winchester. No plane tickets, rented cars or bought cars on name Will Graham in near proximity to Winchester. Will didn't stay long enough in the city for anyone to remember him. Even the car dealer wasn't sure if the photo presented by the private detective showed the same man he bought the car from. Will knew how the FBI operated so it wasn't much of a problem for him to hide his tracks. Everyone found it quite frustrating.

Especially one person, who still didn't want to acknowledge it.  
Hannibal found himself in quite an emotional impasse of sorts at the news. He didn't want to recognize the stir of emotions that fought with each other to get to the surface. The core of it all was a feeling of abandonment sitting heavy in his gut. He found it despicable.

Gideon's jab of "The snails are not the only creatures to prefer the company. If only that company were Will Graham" only hit harder as time went by.

He expected Will to start a hunt, a game, luring him into admitting being the Ripper. Predator versus predator. His true colours showed when he used honeyed tone and mesmerising words in an attempt to kill him by proxy. Matthew only being a knife in his hands.

It wasn't intimate enough.

Hannibal knew it. Will knew it. So why leaving? How could he just leave Hannibal to his own devices being aware of who he was, what he was? Such a delightful pastime would it be. Even with its consequences. He could see seething darkness through Will Graham's act now.

He couldn't put it past him, he himself cultivated this particular seed inside of him. Watering it and giving it just enough light. He cared for his beta friend and his potential but now it got discarded like a piece of trash. It made him rage, wrath boiling him inside out. Though it wasn't the worst part. The vexation struck a cord which wasn't touched in many years.  
Feeling pleasure in Will's company was one thing, an easy thing. Easy to accept as many people bought it with them. Companionship in the dark space.  
But the knowledge of knowing? Seeing? Understanding?

It was irreplaceable.

He could acknowledge this feeling as Bedelia pointed out that he was obsessed with Will Graham. From the perspective of months without direct contact with him, his behaviour was...irresponsible at least. Going on a killing spree to alleviate his fried nerves. He wasn't that impulsive in at least 30 years. Only allowing it as a young man. But the feeling of abandonment wasn't allowing him his control. It was something he never felt in his life to such a degree.

Severing friendly connections was unappetizing but if necessary, it was done without a second thought. But the way Will left was unnerving. Amputating Hannibal from his life and any other connection without explanation. As if Hannibal was means to an end, used for attaining freedom and nothing more.

He could feel awe at the heartlessness of Will's actions mixing with displeasure at the suspicion of cowardness of it. Without Bedelia, he couldn't even express his concerns. Her being was like a sounding board for him, allowing him to hear logic from a third-person perspective. With her departure came silence in his mind palace. The only place allowing him to detach himself from emotional whiplash. As he sat in his office waiting for another patient he heard a ring of his phone.

It was Alana.

After Will left everything fell into place and Chilton became the new Chesapeake Ripper. Meticulously constructed plan with the starring role of Miriam Lass was fruitful in its simplicity.  
Hannibal knew that Jack still had his suspicions but had no way to prove them. With almost every puzzle put in its place, he severed his relationship with Alana, not needing her as a shield. They haven't talked in a private manner in some time so he was a little perturbed by a call but still answered it with his usual grace.

'Hello, Alana. It is a pleasure to hear from you.' There was silence for a second and clearing of the throat when he heard the most energizing words in the last few months.

'Hello Hannibal, likewise. I am calling you to inform you that Will came back. I haven't told Jack just yet but I wanted you to know as I saw you were worried for his well-being.' Hannibal couldn't stifle the deep breath he took in upon hearing this information. All buried emotions bombarding his body to run there and then and see Will for himself.

Of course, he didn't allow it. It was not the time. First, he needed to collect information.

'I'm undeniably happy with that information but I wonder where did you get it?'

'Will call me today that he would like to take his dogs back in a few days. Unfortunately, that's the only thing I got out of him. He's more closed off than before... But at least he's here.'  
He could hear a smile in her voice, even with the events orchestrated by the profiler she couldn't leave him with his instability.

'Thank you, Alana, for calling me. Also if you call Jack I propose for you to stop him from seeking Will just yet. We don't know what happened throughout these 6 months.'

'I thought the same. That's good we agree on the subject. When I meet with Will I will let you know how he's doing.'

'Thank you again, Alana. I will be waiting. Goodbye.'

'Goodbye, Hannibal.'

It was a nice gesture but unnecessary. Hannibal was planning to visit Will on his own. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain, as the saying goes.

\-------------

As he drove in his Bentley to Wolf Trap, he could feel anticipation swirling in his chest causing tremors that went through his body from time to time when he revised every way their first meeting would go after such a long time.

Would it be bloody? Unpleasant or maybe not? Maybe even friendly? Fake in their dance but finally truthful? A lot has changed in him and he suspected in Will too. Too much time to think everything over.

He parked in front of the house and took out the bag with home cooked beignets, Sulawesi Toraja coffee beans and fresh fruit salad. He doubted Will would appreciate anything with meat in the nearest future and it was plain rude to visit unannounced without at least a present of sorts.

He knocked on the white door a few times but was met with silence although he could sense someone's presence in the house. Then he heard a low animal growl and something like trashing on the upper level of the house. Curiosity piqued Hannibal tried opening the door and was met with no resistance of the handle so he came in.

And then it hit him.

The pungent smell of rut. Earthy, musky, warm like a home of an animal but at the same time wild, like the old taste of blood. He inhaled it deeper into his lungs despite his rationality. Technically he shouldn't react to it in any capacity as he was taking suppressants but theory and real-life had its exceptions.

His knees gave out and he had to crawl out on the porch to get away from alpha pheromones. And it was another surprising fact for today-Will wasn't a beta, he was alpha through and through if the pheromones were any indication. Any alpha in a rut wouldn't allow beta near them and Will wasn't one to be with one in a relationship.

But even when he left the house it was too late, he could feel the spasm of his abdominal muscles, uterus and ovaries pulsing with full force. The heat spread through his neck to spine and lower, coiling around his limbs and between his legs. His cock filling with the need to be touched and his hole slicking to be breed. The pain could only be satiated by inserting something into the body, the best option alpha's knot. But it wasn't an option, he used suppressants for at least twenty years now and never spent a heat with an alpha. This time of vulnerability wasn't allowed in his book.  
But now he was forced to submit to his biology and there was no way out. His hindbrain takes control over his movements, making him go back to the house on hands and knees whimpering in pain, smelling nearby alpha, begging for him. Begging for his true mate's knot.

And the piercing whine he uttered was heard throughout the house. He heard the sound of cracked wood and feral growling and looked more into the house to see at the top of the stairs his mate, his Will. The profiler stood shirtless and with unzipped pants, he panted as if he ran a marathon and looked straight at Hannibal.

He put his nose higher in the air and smelled it, he whiffed his scent, sweet like honey and overripe apples and clean like ozone after the strike of lightning. The odour took hold of his clouded mind, compelling him to chase, to earn omega's favour. To hunt him down and breed and bond. Become one with his perfect biological half. His pupils were blown off with desire like Hannibal's, taking away any colour of his azure irises, and he looked down at the kneeling man.

'My omega. Run.' he growled the command and tried to stop himself from not running after him at the moment he saw Hannibal stand up slowly from the hardwood floor. The order made Lecter stand up but he observed alpha the whole time, adrenalin kicking in overdrive now that the hunt finally began with alpha's command. The endorphins coursed through him at the thought that he would be taken by the one who caught him. The best hunter and protector for him and their children. More savage than Hannibal himself when needed, but only if he could catch him, overpower him and bond him, like a real alpha should, making him submit for that one moment so they could be together forever.

At this moment they were animals at nature's mercy, which it had none. If Will couldn't catch him, both of them would be in pain and probably die from the spike in adrenalin and noradrenalin. If he couldn't make him yield he would be eaten alive. The meat of the True Mate alpha contains compounds for omega to survive, that's why it was so rare for people to have True Mates-most of couples were unable to survive the aggression of the hunt and so the genetic pool eliminated this factor.

His first steps were wobbly at best, like that of the newborn calf but as he left the porch his breathing became more steady, his body adjusting to the bombarding of hormones and his instincts took control of his actions. It was time to begin the real hunt, the hunt for a mate.

He ran in the direction of the nearby dense forest. It was the best place to hide and lose inferior candidates for mates if one couldn't track an omega in heat how the alpha supposed to find the prey during his mate's pregnancy? He jumped through the rifts in the terrain with the grace of a wild cat, slick ran down his thighs so much that wet spots started to appear on the fabric of his slacks. He abandoned his coat, scarf, tie and jacket as he ran, like crumbles of bread from the tale. If the smell of his pheromones wasn't enough for the alpha to find him. It wasn't conventional, the purpose of the Hunt was to make it as hard for the alpha as possible but Hannibal couldn't say no to the call of his logical mind muddled by instincts. Will was perfect for him, now that he allowed his darkness outside he could be so much more. His rational side screamed at him to not allow the man near him, even if omega and alpha were on equal footing after the bonding it was an inextricable pact between souls and biology.

It could cause as much damage to both of them as it could bring benefits. He left possessive of Will, but being possessed by him? His omega said one thing but he had a different opinion on it. The threat Will represented still wasn't managed to be lowered, he still could feel the cuts on his wrist, now only pink scars but the phantom pain made itself remembered from time to time. It was a warning, the first and the last he would get.

As he neared the treeline he heard the howl, like a wolf's, from the house. Will stood still like a statue for a moment with closed eyes and then ran. His shirt was ripped off when it hampered his movements, now only in open slacks, bare chest and feet, he was an epitome of feral alpha running to hunt his future mate.

At the sight, omega purred but swiftly jumped deeper into the forest, running in zig zag to lose alpha between the trees, his smell like a trail for Will.

When he got to another clearing before another part of the forest he looked back and strained his hearing looking for any sound besides that of the forest but was met with none.

There were no growls of an alpha, no sounds of broken twigs or rustle of leaves under feet. A small whine bubbled in his throat at the prospect of Will not being able to hunt him, the alpha not even worthy of the fight to bond. No. Hannibal knew he was, he was matchless when compared with anyone else, that's why he went into heat. His biology knew even before his mind did that Will would be the ideal partner for him. He smelled the air to find anything that would give away the position of alpha but the only smells were of him and the forest- citric pine needles, decomposing leaves and earth after the rain.

And old blood.

When he smelled it, it was too late, the whole mass of Will's body nailed him to the ground, punching the air from his lungs. White dots flew before his eyes as Will took hold of his hips and manhandled him to stay on the stomach, hips in the air as he rutted into the cleft of his ass through the slacks. He raked his fingers through Hannibal's dress shirt looking for any way to rip it off the omega, finally finding the lapels of it on his chest when he laid on omega's back, pinning him with his weight some more.

Buttons flew in different directions and the fabric ended up as cuffs for Hannibal's hands now held above his head as his face was buried into the forest floor. There was no fight even, Will outsmarted omega and now he was the conqueror.

With one hand he unbuckled Lecter's belt and shoved dirtied slacks with underwear down as far as possible exposing the clenching pink hole. The amount of slick was almost unbelievable as if it accumulated over the years and now his body produced it in threefold oozing it from the opening, its smell tempting the alpha to lick it away and shove his knot to keep it inside.

Hannibal sobbed with happiness when Will instead of doing that buried himself with one smooth thrust deep inside him. His internal muscles closing around his cock immediately and milking him, his hips going up to take a half-formed alpha knot. The violent plunge and it was inside him, getting harder and harder under his muscles ministrations, opening and closing around it, putting such pressure on the sensitive organ that Will wailed in pleasure and pain of it.

He couldn't speak, both of them, their hindbrains taking full control of the mating, of forming the bond between them. The first bound was fast, Will trusted slightly to put pressure on Hannibal's prostate with a knot and uterus with the head of his cock. Opening it for his seed, to pour it there in such quantities that omega's stomach would bulge at the end of their mating and that life would be sure to grow there.

He stopped holding Hannibal's hands up and instead played with his nipples and chest hair, nibbling on the skin of his neck, waiting for the moment when he is going to climax to bite his mating gland.

They moaned in unison when Hannibal closed around him like a vice as Will squeezed his nipples. They were one body now, the pleasure of one of them making another cry in ecstasy. Hannibal's cock was still painfully entrapped in his boxer briefs but the points of contact with his alpha were so much more important right now. They rutted into each other what felt like hours but were mere minutes until Will orgasmed with a shout and bit him. His sharp fangs tearing through skin and burrowing into the muscle, his tongue lapping on his blood as Hannibal moaned loudly as he came in his underwear. He pushed his neck more into Will's jaws, needing for it to scar, to be permanent. It obviously already was as Will flooded his uterus, omega could feel the pressure building on the walls of it, his ovaries releasing the eggs to meet with the finest sperm cells to create a new life.

At the thought, Hannibal groaned loudly and pushed into Will's hips to make alpha thrust further inside, to push all his seed deeper, so it would all be inside the uterus, fighting for the privilege of reaching his eggs. His mate acquiescence it with pleasure, lapping at seething blood from the bite and holding onto omega, acting at the same time like a blanket to protect it from anything around them.

Their exchange of needs was only by sounds they uttered and pheromones. It was more comfortable for them to be on their sides when knotted but as they were in the open space of the meadow Will growled at any sound around them and covered Hannibal, pinning him to the ground and filling him up. The omega wasn't adverse to the treatment, the way Will acted made him only more aroused.

When finally alpha's knot deflated completely they separated reluctantly, Will still guarding his partner from anything or anyone who could come by. Omega was the one to first notice the state both of them were- filthy with mud and leaves glued to his sparse clothes and skin and cum leaking from his hole. He took off their clothes as Will circled him looking out for any danger, and in the same manner, they went to Will's nest. Profiler holding onto Hannibal like a child by a hand.

When they got there omega took the food he brought, they would need it as their bodies would use up the energy. Inside, Will crowded him to the bed licking and nipping at his full lips, inserting a sleek tongue into his mouth, teasing his palate. So hungry, so devastatingly hungry. They laid on their sides on the unmade bed smelling more like rut pheromones and distress, at which Hannibal whined into Will's mouth and started nibbling on his jaw so he would show his neck. His alpha did so with delight and low purr, folding the well-sculptured globes of doctor's ass. Omega nuzzled into his neck, breathing the smell of contentment and renewed arousal. He took hold of Will by his nape and wrestled him on his back strangling his thighs.

It was time for the omega to stake his claim.

This time their coupling was slower and sweeter as Hannibal took the control over. Growling every time when Will tried to dominate it in any way. With one hand on Will's peck for balance, he grabbed almost red with an arousal cock and slid it inch by inch into himself groaning with satisfaction. Will whined highly when instead of moving Hannibal sat like that, hips going from side to side to wiggle the tip of alpha's cock deeper, massaging the sensitive walls. He growled and snapped his teeth at him. It was his time for taking, and he would relish it as much as possible. But the melodic whimpers Will uttered made his desire rose, his opening tightening to swallow knot again.

With a sigh of irritation, Hannibal put more of his weight on his hands on Will's chest and raised his hips slowly to lower them so abruptly that only a puff of hot air left Will's lungs. With a devilish grin, he started punishing pace pressing Will into the bed and fucking onto his cock. They moaned loudly in unison when Will in the throes of pleasure took hold of omega's middle and jammed into him with a fully inflated knot, filling doctor to the brim a second time, making him collapse on Will and moan again at the change of pressure on his walls and coming between them, once again untouched. His muscles took charge of everything as he nosed at Will's neck to find the perfect spot. And he bit, so deep that Will shrieked and clawed at his back leaving red stripes of damaged skin.

The alpha's blood was exquisite, thick and nutritious, full of compounds necessary to revitalize Hannibal and ingrate Will deeper into his brain, the same way his saliva did to WIll. He licked the wound clean as he was manhandled by his mate onto his back so WIll could blanket him with his small strong frame.

They fell asleep almost instantly, the first wave ending with finalising their bond.

Hannibal woke up to the shaking hot surface under him, he opened his eyes to look straight into Will's giggling face, his eyes hidden by his forearm. Profiler felt when his mate woke up, silky hair tickling his smooth chest.

'Of course, you had to be an omega!' he breathed between the giggles ' And my fucking true mate at that!'

Hannibal observed Will for a minute, silent and still like a stone, the consequences of their unrestricted biology slapping him in the face. He couldn't allow Will Graham to live or die the way they were now. So what has to be done about it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why Will left? What he did this whole time? Why he smells like old blood? What Hannibal is planning for them, now, when they truly are blurred? How they changed and will change? Is Hannibal pregnant?
> 
> If you are interested show your love, my darlings! <3
> 
> Your kudos stroll through the forest and hear some really naughty moans, your comments make some amazing coffee from beans Hanni brought.
> 
> Hit me up on [Twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/Doctor_W_V)!


	2. Chapter 2

His musings were stopped with a sharp ripping feeling in his abdomen, making him hiss and double over. A guttural sound that bloomed from Will's chest at his distress didn't help it, only making his body fight him more. The bonding allowed them the freedom from the frenzy of heat and rut but without the impregnation, his hormones levels were still in such disarray that the cycle wasn't fully over- the production of pheromones was even faster and they were more potent making Will's nostrils flare as he scrambled back as far from Hannibal's fastly overheating body as he could on the bed, nevertheless his cock had gotten hard. 

His thoughts swam in his mind, the scent making his neurons drown in molasses of it. He brought a discarded shirt, or more like pieces of it to his nose, trying to block the potent aphrodisiac that Hannibal produced through his pores. He could smell it even when he breathed through his mouth, almost tasting the sweetness and ripeness of his omega. 

An instinctive whine escaped Hannibal's lips but he soldiered himself fast enough curling in the ball of sweat and internal pain, his muscles constricting faster and faster in need of doing something but with the bond in place there was no neuro signalling for them to fight, only melt into the bed and demand mating to busy them. Hannibal screwed shut his eyelids at the en masse of tingling sensations of the blood running through his veins. He grunted as another strong cramp cut through his abdomen, and he laid on his side to elevate the pain. He looked at Will with unshed tears in his eyes, seeing his alpha fighting nature the same way.

The sweet smell of omega triggered an involuntary response in WIll's body endeavouring him to change the sweet rich smell of sandalwood and honeysuckle to milder ones like warm milk with honey, creating the perfect blend of scents for the newborn. His muscles constricted in the effort to not touch, kiss and lick his bonded. His blood was boiling in his veins at the influx of adrenaline and testosterone prompting him to mount Hannibal but that kind of stuff would work on the weak-willed person, it didn't mean he didn't feel the ever-present misery in Hannibal's scent making his own body trash with need.

Even for all that, he wouldn't do it, he was something new, he was reborn from the carcass of the Ravenstag without Hannibal's further influence. The Ripper wanted to awaken something dark in him, and he did.

But the slow dance he expected was by the beta, someone who didn't have to deal with the total makeovers of one's behaviour in face of danger or rut. Will was an alpha, the information that no one knew besides his old workplace in Louisiana PD and his father. The hormone chips allowed him to live without the burden of being like a hormonal ticking bomb all the time. Now that alphas and omegas were in five percent of the population of the world, it was still a considerable amount to create means of overcoming nature's uncomfortable gifts and live like a beta, as Will and Hannibal did.

But the chips had to be changed every few years and when he was supposed to get a new one his encephalitis pierced its claws into his brain and then he was incarcerated, all thanks to his omega that now writhed in the dirty sheets looking at him with pleading eyes that oozed hatred on the basest of levels. The hurt of omega abandoned by alpha when in need and not satisfied. Something wiggled uncomfortably in Will's guts at this look, he turned his eyes away from the omega to school his thoughts on not being nearer him. He could fight this and he would, Hannibal had too much control over his life already, there was no need to become more intimate. 

Intimate meant that he cared, and he did, but Hannibal didn't have to know it. He didn't have to know how Will would kill him. He knew that if his omega knew even something so perverse he would be delighted by it. And so it was safer to watch from the sidelines and wait. Like a hunter. Like an alpha.

But everything went wrong. And again, all because of Hannibal, who had to appear on his doorsteps as soon as he came back from Louisiana to go into rut undisturbed on his territory. Far away from danger and people, as wild as he craved to be in his woods to reset his biology once again and become a beta with another chip.

But of course, that couldn't end like that, not with them, never with them. Another obstacle put in place by something or someone who had too much fun from their struggles.

True mates. Of course, they had to be just that...

Will sighed and tensed as Hannibal tried to get nearer him, his body radiating heat and the delicious smell of need and ache.

'Will-' murmured omega taking the handful of the sheet to crawl to his alpha's hunched form in the corner. He could live through it by all means but this was an opportunity, a dangerous gamble of sorts but the most rewarding one he could take if he won. There was no going back from the bond, neither of them able to kill the other without killing themselves. And the influence a bond would give was even more secure than the one he had on Will's fevered brain.

This was his chance to integrate into Will, open his chest and slip between white ribs to make a nest of his drumming with life heart. There would be no force in the world to make his alpha run away from him again, he wouldn't choose this path before but with new circumstances came new means of manipulation.

Hannibal whined for him, showed his marked neck and brushed his finger on Will's foot making the alpha jump from the corner and off the bed as if he was touched by a blazing fire.

'No.' Will growled embracing his middle to not reach for his mate. 'You can stay here until the end of this cycle.' he didn't even look in Hannibal's direction as he said that, his vocal cords constricting at the feeling of stone plummeting into his stomach at the words towards his omega. ' But after that, I don't want to see you.'

Hannibal looked at the trembling mess that was Will Graham, now, when fighting his instincts and biology it was so much more exciting. A spineless alpha would already try to cover him but Will, his beautiful mate fought, hard and fiercely. But that wouldn't do now, at this stage it was time for Will to give in, it was necessary as his natural cycle would probably not come in another few months.

'Will, I need you.' he whispered trying to catch his alpha's eyes that looked everywhere but him. With the last strength, he crawled from the bed landing on the floor with a dull thud and started to rise up holding onto the bed and then chair near it. His skin itched at the contact with anything that wasn't the heated flesh of his mate, sweat gathered on his whole body, full of pure pheromones. As he was fully upright, chin up, shoulders back, naked with visible erection and slick running down his tights, Will looked at him in pure horror, he knew as well as the omega that he wouldn't be able to fight him if Hannibal decided it and touched him. They were more assailable to each other now and the wish of the bonded omega was for his or her alpha order that could not be dismissed, the same way for omega when alpha was in a rut. 

Will stepped back and started to circle Hannibal observing his movement with half-lidded blue eyes. 

'No' he whispered and then looked his omega straight in the maroon eyes 'NO!' he screamed lunging for the closed door to run, naked as the day he was born, into the woods to not get touched and not lose oneself in the mating. Their roles reversed and Hannibal could only appreciate the irony of it, he ogled the slim but muscular behind of his mate and jolted after him, his muscles finally finding other ways to burn all the energy that accumulated in them. The cool wind dried his body and stimulated it to run faster. His breath ragged with a fire burning in his lungs at the feel of being predator again, even though the Hunt was a delicious ordeal he would definitely repeat, the natural state of mind of a killer was intoxicating.

The alpha's strength was a well-known thing in the world but omega's? Not so much. The new-found vigour made Hannibal's killer instincts so much sharper, creating a blood-red tunnel vision on his mate. His nose picking up his scent even as he was a hundred meters away from him. He delighted in the spicey tang of Will's anger in his earthy musk laced with old blood. And wasn't that an intriguing scent? Where would Will pick it up?

As he ran through the muddy meadow, his feet burying into warm after rain earth he observed his alpha. His movements are not so stiff or jittery, they become more fluid, predatory even. His body sleek but more powerful, the six months Will spent away had been truly productive as his back, buttocks, things and calves flexed magnificently, making Hannibal salivate. 

He wanted to taste that skin again, take it between his teeth, with Will knowing who he was, and mark every patch of the olive expanse. And that was another clue of what Will did or where he was- a full-body tan made him look even more beautiful if it was possible. The sickly pale but stunning like marble skin he saw in the BSHCI was now glistening with sweat that looked like melted gold in the early sunlight. 

Hannibal wanted to draw it.

He could feel every muscle in his body as he ran, energy used to make them work more efficiently than his alpha's. Even with all the training Will was still no match for Hannibal's stamina, years of training in hunting down his prey making him apex predator. With only a few feet apart he jumped in the air, his body exceeding its own limits with clear intent in mind. To breed. 

Of course, he himself didn't want it. The possibility of a child was something he never considered and there was no need for it now. But his body had its own opinion on this subject and made him stronger, only for him to procreate, give healthy genes and create a stronger line with worthy alpha-Will. Will who hunted him down and took him like an animal on the forest floor. 

A tremor went through his chest at the memory when he took hold of Will's nape pining into the ground. But instead of pliancy, there was a fight, a bloody one. 

Will trashed under him, growling and roaring at each point of contact between their bodies, melting into each other, fitting so well. He took hold of Hannibal's wrist that was near his nape and crushed it so his omega would let him but instead, he flipped Will on his front and tightened another hand on his neck, straddling his hips and entangling his legs under Will's knees and hooking his feet on his calves, not allowing his alpha to run, ever again if he had any decision in that.

'Will.' Hannibal huffed irritated when his bonded tried to wrestle his way out with only hands on omega's shoulders, creeping nearer his neck.

Blue met maroon. ' I didn't want for it to end this way but I won't be your puppet on silver strings.' He snarled and with steel in his eyes took hold of his omega's neck and tightened the grip so much that a blush of heat changed to that of oxygen deprivation.

'Will.' Choked again omega seriously, still holding onto his mate's neck threateningly but also starting to undulate his pelvis, Will's cockhead creating amazing friction on his opening. He closed his eyes at the pleasure of such a simple act, his body demanding him to bury his alpha's cock so deep it couldn't leave his body, stuck with Hannibal's walls milking him dry as the knot wouldn't let anything out. A visible hot puff of air left his lips, the cold weather making their bodies crave more of others body heat. 

' I need you, Will.' Whispered Hannibal opening his eyes to look into his bonded eyes. But Will's were tightly shut, his arm trembling with the strain of fighting his instincts and just let go. 

'No.' Will whispered, more to himself than his omega, trying to make his body listen to him, his head pounding with the terror of hurting his mate but allowing Hannibal to be this mate. 'Nonononononono-' he banged his head on the ground, his body twisting under strong thighs, cock throbbing fervently to get inside the heated inside of Hannibal's body. His squirming only irritated omega further, the grip on Will's throat tightened momentarily making Will look into his omega eyes. Which was a mistake. 

'I need you, Will.' Repeated Hannibal, his voice like a hammer striking the hot iron of Will's temper, making it yield and listen to it. 'And you will give me what I need.'

'Yes.' A reply was like a whisper of the wind, small and almost non-existent to be heard, but Hannibal's body could hear it and see it. The muscular compact body softening, the tension evaporating from the fibres of the muscle tissue. Will's eyes half-lidded and murky, like he was in trance. 

'Yes.' They moaned in unison as Hannibal put Will's cockhead to his slicky hole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote a bit of a tease here if I feel like it I will continue with porn of course and harder stuff(not their cocks xD) I mean a life after heat etc  
> Hope you liked it so far!✨


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we have full-blown rape cause no rut/heat to lie to ourselves that what they did there wasn't rape. Anyhow don't read if you can't handle it. You have been warned.

He sinks into Will's hot rod at once, his whole weight slamming him to the hips of his alpha who groans like a wounded animal. He can feel the tip of Will's cock nudging the cervix, almost as if it wanted to pierce it and just be in the womb. The thought makes Hannibal whine with elation. So brutal and animalistic, the need to plant the alpha's seed inside him at any cost, to burst with it at the end of their coupling.

He looks at Will who breaths raggedly under him, his olive skin now filthy with soil and dead leaves. His hair is the same state, tangled, dirty and greasy. His eyes are looking through him as if he wasn't there, as if the omega he was fucking into right now with the roll of his hips didn't have a face, a name, a history with him.

Hannibal growls lowly, snapping Will a little bit from his trance of pure pleasure of mating induced by omega's pheromones. Will's lips snap shut and form in the thin line, a frown forming on his forehead. He tries to stifle sighs when Hannibal raises his hips and moans when he lowers them. The omega is enraged at that.

How dare his alpha hide his enjoyment from him?!

Hannibal takes hold of Will's jaw, angling it to look only at him but Will's eyes darted everywhere but on Hannibal's face. He understands why Will does that, he is aware that what he feels himself isn't truly rational either, but his body and mind only react to the influx of sex hormones that are pumped into his system, taking full control of his emotions and desires.

For example, he doesn' want a child, he and Will have one already. Still hidden away in the safehouse until Will acknowledges his true self, his dark thoughts and appetites. But his body doesn't think that way, he doesn't feel the same emotional connection with her as he would feel with his own flesh. Their flesh, his and Will's.

Any thought of being bred, of being taken care of when pregnant and of giving his alpha pups makes his toes curl and his nipples tingle. The phantom feeling of feeding their pups prompted him to piston his hips, pushing Will's body harder into the ground and tightening his passage. They mate like animals, no kisses or lovely touches, just bruises where Will is holding his tights, fingers white with the pressure. Will's jaw, throat and collarbones are abused in turn by long fingers and hard palms as Hannibal tries to find support for his hands as he fucks on Will's half-formed knot, his body instinctively trying to milk it, making Will writhe, howl and hiss. He doesn't want to touch anything that isn't Will, even his calves are supported more by alpha's tights and knees than the ground, which makes Will jumpy fucking so much better, hitting just right as his knot abuses his prostate, filling so so slowly to stretch him open.

Hannibal can already feel how his walls already cling to it, not allowing it to leave as it fills to its maximum capacity. He moans and mewls and then bites Will's throat to prompt him in his orgasm. His blood tastes like life itself, bittersweet with metallic tang and nutritive with all the nourishment it contains. Will screams and rakes his blunt fingernail in his back again as he sucks on his throat to get more blood from the bite and replace it with his saliva, full of mating compounds.

'No-' Will sobs as he feels his knot fill and seals in Hannibal 'You can't have my child.' He tries to get it out but omega's weight just doesn't allow it. He looks away, far into the forest hoping for some wolf or bear to find them and just rip apart. It wouldn't even matter, he already was ripped inside by his omega, the Chesapeake Ripper.

It's like a physical blow to the gut that makes Hannibal's pleasure crumble to the ground. He opens his jaws and licks the last of the blood from his lips to look at Will, a mask of calm in place as the storm wreaks havoc in his omegan soul.

'Don't worry, I won't.' He smiles stiffly as Will looks at him in surprise, a relief painting his features makes something twist in Hannibal's chest. 'I have a contraceptive chip which shouldn't allow any-' he harrumphs 'accidents.'

An involuntary snarl of possessiveness makes Hannibal tighten in delight, the knot fully locked and just waiting for them to seal the bond again.

'Bite me, Will.' He says calmly observing the myriad of emotions that go through alpha's face. Excitement, irritation, anger, pain, sadness and finally acceptance of his obligation as an alpha. They wouldn't be even able to break apart if they wanted. The fully-formed knot painfully tugging on Hannibal's insides with any movement. And omega's wishes during the heat are for alpha an order.

Will takes Hannibal by the nape and slowly brings his neck to his lips, he looks at the still fresh bite marks, now scabbed with clogged blood and grime. The sight of it makes him twitch inside Hannibal, making him harder if it was possible which causes omega to hiss his name and press the place he bit him last to Will's open mouth. The sharp fangs are already jabbing the delicate tanned skin. Will licks and sucks on it, the pheromones from the mating gland so concentrated making his head swim. He wants to do it again and again.

He bites and thinks about marking his omega like that everywhere. From the calloused fingertips to slim ankles. He wants to see Hannibal like that, thoroughly fucked and marked, fully his. He worries the skin between his teeth to burrow his fangs deeper as he comes, and he comes hard. At first, everything is white but then there is a sound, high-pitched and amazing as if some soul met their creator.

He hums into Hannibal's neck, still holding onto it as his hips spasm in a frenzy with their little thrusts to push his seed deeper, to not let anything go to waste, as if Hannibal could absorb it all and create a life. But instead of absorbing it his lower belly swells, the bound after bound of come filling him to the brim and some more.

When he finally lets go of omega's neck he notices that the lovely sounds of ecstasy were made by Hannibal who slumps on him fully, his muscles giving out at the volume of orgasmic experiences in such a short amount of time. Hannibal touched himself when Will filled him up and now almost colourless fluid was leaking from the tip of his cock as he came every time Will pumped more seed into him.

They laid there, in the cold mud breathing each other in and trying to piece together any coherent thought when linked by their private parts.

They knew one thing for sure. They were a mess, literally and metaphorically.

Will couldn't kill Hannibal now but he couldn't let him live either. Not after all six months of wandering and learning himself through blood and agony. Not after what Hannibal did to Beverly and Abigail, what he did to him.  
He felt like crying with all those thoughts swarming in his brain, polluting it with the muck of indecision. He felt like screaming. He looked at the sky, dark grey clouds obscuring it and heralding the rain. He would like it to be a rain of acid.

As the first drops fell from the sky he allowed himself to cry, silently and with the cloak of stability in place. His tears looked like rain but it didn't deceive Hannibal because they had a very distinct smell to them.

He inhaled and exhaled it and gave it a place in one of the rooms in his mind palace where everything was about Will, closed off just yesterday.

He wasn't proud of how he used their biology but there was no other way in such a situation. So many variables and unknowns were too hazardous and now he could have Will. All to himself, his true mate chained to him as Hannibal was chained to Will even before he knew it. There was much they had to discuss but for now-

'Will, we need to get back to the house. It's not advisable to spend the rest of the cycle in the rain.'

Will looked at him with sightless eyes, rivulets going down his nose, cheeks and forehead. He looked so beautiful in his silent suffering.

'Yeah. I guess we should.' He murmured and shakily embraced Hannibal to move them to their sides and extract his knot as slowly as possible, the internal muscles of Hannibal's passage still holding tightly.

They wobbled back to the house in the rain, resting on each other for support. Their bodies are too exhausted after the adrenalin rush to be able to walk by themselves. They flopped onto the bed that creaked under the weight of two full-grown men. They went to sleep immediately, the dreamless sleep of bone-tired. The sheets are a mess of old blood, dry come, slimey slick and dark soil.


	4. Chapter 4

When they got back to Will's house and slept just a bit till the next cycle started. The heat and clench in Hannibal's abdomen prompted the release of another bound of potent pheromones that clouded Will's mind as Hannibal took from him what he needed. They were aware, but at the same time, it was like looking from the sidelines. Just standing in the same room and with disgust process the scene before them. It was animal and base, fully controlled by their bodies instead of their minds. At first, Hannibal was the aggressive one, taking and taking, marking Will's olive skin with red lines from his manicured nails and sharp teeth. His lips were red with the rough kisses his omega gave him as he rode his knot. He just laid there, almost like a doll with sightless eyes only moaning and howling with pleasure and pain. There was nothing else besides those two things. No revenge, no FBI, no Cheasapek Ripper, no betrayal and no feelings whatsoever. 

This was a feral breeding like beasts who couldn't be sated until they didn't spurt another one of them on this sad world. 

When Hannibal lost the power in his legs and hips from the exertion, his womb full with Will's come, Will came alive. He flipped omega on his back, still coming as the knot slowly deflated and started to pump his hips again, hissing with oversensitivity but moaning shortly after as his length started to harden again. Now he was the one to take, to pin his bonded to the mattress and make a purplish red collar of bite marks on Hannibal's shoulders, collarbones and neck. He watched as omega cried and sobbed, not even sure if in the agony of the rough mating or enjoyment of it. When there was no more unmarred skin for his teeth, he manhandled Hannibal on his too-full belly and started to bite harshly his nape and back, digging white-knuckled fingers into his hip and shoulder, impaling omega on his cock and knotting, again and again, and again. The writhing body moaning and howling as orgasm after orgasm came with the savage treatment.

When one lost the strength to take, the other would take the reins. At the end of the day, the hunger won and they ate the fruits Hannibal brought and gulped water as if they were on the dessert. They didn't even sleep, more like lost consciousness in the middle of mating to wake up after a few hours to begin again.

They spent two days like that. Their brains outside their cages of bone observing as their bodies fucked, ate and slept. 

Hannibal was the one who woke up first, the flaccid length still in him as Will slept on his back as he was on his belly. He winced as he moved to extract himself from the blanket Will created from his own body. The muscles screamed in agony, his skin yelped in pain and the fullness of his belly suggested a need for a long shower to get everything out. 

But at the same, he felt content, the contentment of a well-fucked omega who would be giving his alpha pups. Hannibal knew it wasn't possible, not with the hormonal chip still embedded into his forearm. But his body glowed with pure satisfaction from the placebo effect of constant mating and biting. 

When he almost escaped from under Will, strong arms enclosed his abdomen pushing a bit of cum and slick from inside him, wetting his tights and ruining the mattress. Will's hands unconsciously started to caress gently his lower stomach and a low purr echoed from his chest, making Hannibal's body melt back into the mattress. 

Even without the heat, they were susceptible to each other much more than anyone else. It hit him how much any action of Will's would make him feel immeasurable pain or gratification. It was a dangerous power, especially wielded by someone who tried to kill him. At the same time, Will wasn't omnipotent with it. Hannibal still was his own person with hormonal imbalance caused by Will. It would be a harder life for sure, but there was no other way. He couldn't kill Will for many reasons, but the most important one was that it would kill him too. 

When people became mates it was easier for them to adjust to one another, but at the same time it wasn't something drastic to change their typical behaviour, there was also no problem with finding another mate. The problem laid with True Mates who were almost nonexistent at this point of history. The savage way of their reproduction and lifestyle wasn't for the developing world and so the people like that were shunned away and often killed or imprisoned for their barbarism.

But nature always found its way and it looked like it found it in Hannibal and Will. As True Mates after bonding, they were considerably more affected by one's mood, words or actions. Also, any changes in scent or behaviour. They could take mannerisms of one another and be able to understand each other without words. They were also intertwined for life, there was no way out, no hormone therapy or surgery would allow either of them to get rid of the bond, because the bond wasn't just the bite mark on the mating gland, it was enzymatic part of each cell of their bodies, the DNA mutating to accommodate it and create indelible web between their organisms. If one died, the other would too, if one went into heat or rut, the other would too. The distance didn't even matter, there was no way out for either of them.

It was frightening to even think about it, the slow petting of his belly, maybe allowed him some respite from those facts, but Hannibal's brain worked in overdrive, planning his next moves. He already made one. He was disgusted with it even though it was the only option at that time. He couldn't allow Will to abandon him, not a second time. He needed to get as much control as he could from this bond but at the same time take precautions over the control Will had over him. 

It was still disturbing that even with all that in mind, he couldn't slip away from under his alpha, the warm weight calming him as strong arms protected him and their imagined pups from the world. 

It was dangerous. Truly dangerous.

And Will wasn't even awake. Hannibal couldn't imagine what would happen when he finally was conscious. He practically raped him, the "no" still echoed in his ears as the teary face was before his mind's eyes. It looked like one of the paintings of martyrs, he loved so much. The agony of not being killed, but by being ostracized so much by his own brothers and sisters, by being betrayed. It was more awe-inspiring than the puppy tears he saw when he visited Will in the prison. 

He wanted to taste them, so the saltiness of them could mingle with the coppery tang of blood and the sweetness of their tongues. Such heady combination made Hannibal salivate a little as slick started to dribble from his opening. He breathed hard into the pillow with annoyance at his body's biology. It would take him at least a week for the production of lubrication to reduce. The pads were inevitable. 

As he thought about it a caress stopped and the body above him tensed. It looked like Will finally woke up.

'Good Morning' said Hannibal in a raspy voice, his throat completely ruined after days of loud moaning.

Will took away his hands from his abdomen and heaved to the other side of the bed with a grunt. 

'I wouldn't say it's a good morning. Waking up like this again, bonded even stronger than before.' He looked at Hannibal, who observed him in turn, omega was still splayed on the mattress when Will leaned against the headboard of the bed. He raked his hair with his sticky fingers, the smell of sweet slick clogging his nose as the lubricant landed in his hair and looked at his mate. He wanted to touch the slight scruff on omega's cheeks and neaten the tousled soft blond hair, but instead, he clenched his hands into fists. 'Why did you do this?'

Hannibal cocked his head to the side as he propped himself on one arm. His whiskey eyes thinned into slits as he smiled sweetly but there was an edge to it. 

'I told you I needed you.'

'Don't lie to me! I know as well as you that we were able to control ourselves. It hurt, but it wasn't something we wouldn't be able to handle.' the piercing stormy blue eyes bored into Hannibal's own.

'True.' sighed omega, alpha's order reverberating through his chest. 'But it didn't mean I didn't need you, Will. You are my alpha now and so it's your obligation to sate my needs.'

'I'm your nothing, Doctor Lecter. And you are nothing to me.' He stood up, a soiled sheet draped around his waist. There was nothing to hide from each other now, everything was thoroughly seen, but he still did as if the sheet could protect his dignity. He went to the bathroom, opened the door and pierced Hannibal with his eyes. ' I want you to leave and never show up again. I ran so I would be able to get rid of you once and for all but now even this isn't an option, so leave. When I finish my shower, I don't want to see anything that is yours in my house, including you.'

Hannibal raised graciously with a small wince as another bound of fluids escaped from his hole, minutely attracting Will's attention, something stirring in his guts at the sight. Omega didn't cover himself and with a mask of stone put his hand on his abdomen.

'You should know that it's not recommended for newly bonded pairs to be away from each other, especially True Mates. The psychological pain can render us unable to function for days or even weeks.' 

'I don't care. I don't have a job or dogs to take care of, I will handle it as I handled you and your curiosity. I will live through it and as for you...' Will clenched his fingers on the doors and stooped a little bit forward' I hope you will writhe in pain.' He hissed.

Hannibal mulled the conditions for a second and acknowledged in his mind that he lost this battle. 

'Very well, I will leave. But first I would like to clean myself up' he caressed his slightly inflated stomach meaningfully making Will blush and avert his eyes harrumphing.

'Fine. You tidy yourself up and leave.'

'Also, I don't have any spare clothes with me.' Hannibal blinked slowly trying to stop his mirth.

'Ugh, I will find you something. Just hurry up and go shower.' Will closed his eyes, walking away from the bathroom door to not brush Hannibal as he passed by or even look at his naked form. His hand went to his beard to scratch it, the habit when he was agitated, but forgot about the remnants of slick. The smell was still so strong, even in small quantities. The doors closed after omega, leaving Will with his thoughts as he looked at his hands. He fought with the instincts to lick them clean and knot something again. He walked as fast as he could on his wobbly legs to the sink scrubbing nervously his hands clean under hot water until they were red and bruised but without the smell of Hannibal on them, not like the rest of Will's body.

He took a few minutes to collect himself and went to look for spare clothes that could fit a big omega. 

His movements were that of a robot, automatical and without any thought to them as he rummaged through his wardrobe and dresser. He dressed himself just for the sake of covering nakedness. When he was finally alone his full focus was inwards, to the swirling, disgusting images. Red palms of his hands slick with black liquid in the moonlight, the whiteness of the bone and the pinkness of muscles as the flesh opened up so beautifully for him.

All this to prepare, to learn and feel and become for a moment the monster Doctor Lecter painted for the world only to take a bucket of water and destroy the painting when he felt like it. The problem was that that water woke Will up and the painting of a monster became more grotesque than before. And so the fuming monster stepped outside the ruined canvas that was his life to bring justice to his playful painter who was a monster himself. But there was no justice left anymore, not with the state they were in.

Will looked at the oversized green sweater he held in his grip and felt the incoming tears stinging his eyes. He wanted to scream, to tear everything apart with his teeth and hands until they were too blunt to do any more damage. He wanted to cut deep into his own skin with his nails, as if all the pain he accumulated could just escape through those injuries with blood. He felt like there was too much emotion in him to contain, making him go so feral again that he would kill the omega and himself soon after. 

Instead, only one tear slid down his cheek and a shaky breath escaped his parted lips. He took the sweater, sweatpants and one of his old jackets, which probably was too small for Hannibal, but there was nothing else for him to give, and put it on the table. He cleaned the bed, but as he looked at the mattress he decided he would need a new one.

Without the heat of another's body, he felt the slight chill of the autumn morning and went to start the fire. For a second he thought about just burning this whole place down with himself and the omega in it.  
\--------  
When Hannibal crossed the entrance to the small bathroom, the first thing he did was to look in the mirror above the sink. He looked into his own eyes, mentally capturing any feelings that could escape through them. He eyed his mask, no cracks there, and went down the column of his neck. The mating bite in the junction of the shoulder and neck already scarring slowly was touched reverently with slim fingers. Even a slight touch made a pleasant shiver run down his spine, making him unclench his buttocks. Thanks to the gravity and too-open sphincter bound after the bound of liquids left Hannibal's body, the feeling was as blissful as unappetizing.

He mapped the bite with the tips of his fingers, fangs done more damage than the other teeth, but they were cleaner in look, puncture wounds tingled so good that even his breath hitched a bit. 

His eyes went lower, to all marks Will left on him. They had no other meaning to it other than showing possessiveness. Something warm pulled in Hannibal's stomach at some memories from their coupling. He never allowed himself to be this savage, and neither did his partners. He was aware of the primal want for it, but self-control was something he appreciated in himself. But the mating they had was so out of his reality that there was no going back to typical sex. 

However, it wasn't the only type of touch he wanted now from Will. Hannibal still felt the warmth of Will's palms on his lower abdomen. How delicate the touch was and how sweet and deep was his purr. He wanted to feel it again, but this time when he was conscious and willing. 

He had to form a plan so they would get to that, but for now, he had to clean up. 

The water took some time to heat up even for it to be lukewarm so in the meantime he cleaned the floor. At least there was no need for water to be hotter, his injuries still fresh and aching. The warm spray stung, but was amazing at the same time. Hannibal eyed with contempt the bottle of cheap shampoo and a classical bar of soap and decided to only wash his body with soap. It was old-fashioned and wouldn't do much damage to his skin beside making it a bit more dry. The shampoo was another thing entirely, he decided that he will just take a long bath with bubbles and oils when he comes back home. 

He lathered the soap and started slowly getting rid of the flakes of dried blood, mud, grime and other liquids, his own or Will's. When he finally was done with the exterior, he leaned against the wet wall and put two fingers in himself, stretching his opening as wide as he could to push out the rest of the proof of their mating. The other hand went to his belly to push down, the stream of fluids ran down Hannibal's thighs and fingers as he grunted in relief. He scissored himself deeper to ease a way and a guttural moan bubbled in his throat. 

When there was nothing more to push out he cleaned his lower half and looked at the counter beside the sink, the old forest green sweater, grey sweatpants and black boxers laid there. He blinked once and a slight blush crept on his cheeks at the knowledge that Will could hear him. It was a paranoid feeling, they already saw and heard everything but at the same time, it was something alien to them, this intimacy.

He changed swiftly and came out, hair still wet and a slight blush on his cheeks. Will was sitting in one of the chairs, a glass with amber liquid in it.

'I don't believe alcohol after all the over-taxation is necessary a good idea, Will.' Hannibal said, going to him.

'Stop. Don't get any nearer' Alpha said seriously, not even looking back.' Take your things and get out. That was the deal.'

Hannibal looked at Will's profile for a second and nodded once. He took all his ruined clothes with him, the leather shoes still whole, but filthy and wet and gifts he prepared for welcoming Will back home. He looked at his bare feet as he stood beside the door and decided against asking for shoes, there wouldn't be any that would fit him anyway. He stared at Will who gazed into the fire with a blank look as he nursed his whiskey.

It looked like his alpha truly planned to go through the pain of trying to break the bond. It wasn't possible, but it was possible to make it weaker. And that was dangerous.

'Goodbye, Will.' Hannibal opened the front door and glanced once more at Will who didn't even answer, already so deep in his mind. He went outside and took a deep breath in of clean air, less saturated with their combined scents. In the doctor's mind cogs started to already turn to ensure that there would be no weakening of their bond. 

Will, on the other hand, put his face in his calloused palms and sobbed helplessly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'mma go pat myself on the back for updating this terribly written chapter. I have no English skills and even less motivation to edit those fics so I'mma just go and post them how they were written in my free time.
> 
> At this point, there are for pure leisure so I hope that someone will still like it.


	5. Chapter 5

When he comes back home he goes through his day as if nothing happened. 

He calls his secretary to apologize for not responding to her calls as she handled patients for the last few days quite expertly. He takes a long bath and cleans his wounds, the skin of his hips and back is streaked with irritated red traces of Will's nails and yellowish bruises after their rough mating. The marks made by alpha's teeth are nasty and wicked but as he touches them one by one, feeling the grooves and protrusions, something maddeningly hot coils in his lower belly. 

His cock stirs under the water as the molten lava of pleasure courses through his veins when he grabs his bonding bite harshly making him groan loudly and whimper in the privacy of his bathroom. The artificial pressure, that should be Will's teeth, makes him see white-hot sparks before his eyes, he doesn't even have to touch himself, the pleasure building insistently as he alters the clutch from lighter and faster to hard and long. He digs his nails into the freshly made bite and the action makes him arch in the bathtub, water splashing wildly to each side as Hannibal's body writhes. He has to take hold of the rim of the bathtub to not slip under the water as his orgasm trashes through his every nerve ending.

He whimpers pathetically as he doesn't register his alpha anywhere near him, his hindbrain taking control as the bonding hormones are still present in his system. The abrupt panic slowly ebbs away as the pleasure of orgasm is becoming just a low hum in his groin and back. It looked like their separation hadn't settled in with his body yet but he was sure that tomorrow won't be such a peaceful day. He read about separation anxiety between True Mates but never saw it himself. 

The medical records told about the ever-present need both bodies, alpha's and omega's, felt for contact. The need was supposedly so strong chemically and psychologically that both parties could become fanatical in their pursuit of getting to their mate, the pain was also a promoting agent. The amount of pain and the feeling of it varied from case to case so it was hard to predict what kind of agony awaited him and Will tomorrow. The theory said something about hormonal compatibility and how bonding itself went. Hannibal was curious himself what kind of feeling it could be and if his self-control was enough to quell it, it was something like a test on its own.

He slipped under the surface of the water and opened his eyes, the distorted shapes of the ceiling and furniture were almost like impressionistic artwork of blurred shapes and colours. As he marvelled at the simplicity of beauty in everyday life, the cogs in the back of his mind started turning, developing and shaping plans as to how to get Will back. It wouldn't be easy or pleasant, the first thing he did was not the most acceptable one. But at the same time, there was no other option, if they separated after one mating and bonding the consequences would be catastrophic. Not only there would be pain involved but also the bond would be strained and unpredictable. 

Hannibal didn't know where Will went, why he went, what he did and why he came back. There were too many unknowns to choose any other course of action than to just give into the heat and secure their unity. There was no foretelling of how Will will go on with what happened between them now but there was an undeniable connection between them now that no one would be able to tear apart, not even Will's morality. With a gasp, he resurfaced and took the smell of lavender and salt deep into his lungs, his cerebrum already didn't like it as there was no trace of his alpha's scent, the lavender was clogging his nostrils with its intensity and he could almost taste the salt with the tip of his tongue.

He longed for the earthy musk of Will's sweat and that exciting tang of blood it had, but he wasn't so overpowered yet to go to the trash bin and look for ruined clothes that still had a smell of alpha on them. Hannibal still had his pride.

\--------

Until he didn't the next day when the separation anxiety kicked in.

\---------

Will woke up to the massive hangover and ripping pain through his whole body. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to groan at the light of the day, which made his head hurt or scream because of the force of the pain everywhere else. It felt almost like the muscle tissue ripped itself to get back together in a different configuration, he was sweaty with the heat that hit him in one second to be replaced by cold shivers in the next. He knew what was wrong with him, Doctor Lecter already told him so yesterday, also he saw the thing himself when he was just a boy in Louisiana. 

The separation anxiety. Though now when he writhed in agony on his coach he wouldn't call it anxiety at all. Anxiety sounded more like a jittery jumping from side to side and slight trembling of hands, what Will felt right now was more like purgatory. The state of suffering he was going through, like the soul of a sinner who is expiating their sins before going to heaven, was changing his whole biology, taking it apart and putting it together adversely each time. Burning him alive as all his senses looked for omega. 

He couldn't hear him, couldn't taste or touch or see and it made him flail so much more, until his nose flared with the almost non-existent scent from their mating. His pupils dilated immediately as adrenaline surged through his system, prompting him to find the source of smell and coil around it like a snake. He stood up abruptly and went to his laundry bin where the soiled sheet laid to be washed. He took it out and immediately pressed his nose into it, nuzzling into dried patches of slick and sweat there Hannibal's scent was the strongest. With renewed vigour, he went to the bare mattress and created a sort of miserable nest with the sheets, he undressed and started to roll in them, snuggling into it to get out as much sweet overripe scent of omega slick and the salty tang of sweat on himself. He was aware the whole time, it wasn't like a rut, taking away any reason or inhibitions. He felt such anguish that only the presence of his omega would soothe it and it wasn't an option.

He already told Dr Lecter- he wasn't his alpha. He was betrayed once, he wouldn't allow it again, and he just knew that the doctor would use this opportunity. He already used it once during the mating cycle. Now when his plan was ruined, he had to use any means he could to harm the psychiatrist, even for the price of the suffering he was going through now. He knew for a fact that what he felt right now will be the same thing omega felt. So even though all the hacking in his limbs and torso, nausea and pounding in his temples and panic that pumped through his veins, hot like magma, he was smiling.

He grinned crookedly and laughed through pain smelling the sheets which softened the scalding burn of need in him to look for omega, all because he knew Lecter was going through it too. He really wanted to see it himself. The always sharp man with God complex whining and dying inside as his body gives him only pain, like salt on the open wound.

He comprehended it was pathetic to find pleasure in something so tiny and useless, but he savoured it anyway. He didn't see how the scars on omega's wrists were made but they were beautiful in their own way. He wanted to watch this show himself but all information about the accident was hidden away, not even allowing him to imagine it. He made his own marks on Hannibal right now but they were more like brands of elation than that of wrath and hatred that boiled in his gut even now. At the same time, he felt tired, so tired with all that happened in the last few days and he didn't even want to think how the whole situation would develop. 

He just knew it wouldn't be anything favourable for him or the doctor. They were able to cause only pain to each other now. He felt the coldness seeping through omega's bones when he said they were nothing to each other. It felt good to hurt him, even with simple words, but he understood that was a cycle. If Hannibal felt pain, he would suffer by his hand, and if omega would show his displeasure by performing another elaborate plan, he would seek him out just to put another needle into his heart. 

They were intertwined now, and for forever. The thought was as calming as it was disturbing, another tremor went down his spine and he wiggled under the blanket, covering his face with a filthy sheet to breath the smell in and just lose himself in the dreamland made up of horrors. It was better now when he accepted a few things about himself but better yet, he didn't have to feel the physical pain there. He breathed the scent in and closed his eyes, his mind slowly leaving the battered body behind to find itself in woods full of monsters, monsters like himself.

\-----------

Hannibal's resolve to not contact Will broke when the scent of his mate faded from torn clothes, instead, it smelled of his own distress. Hannibal called Will the first thing in the morning as he wasn't even able to stand up properly now, his legs felt as if they were made out of cotton. His omegan biology subjected him to be more on a receiving end, waiting for the sign from alpha to pursue him, but he didn't get one. He called and called, listening to the annoying "beep beep beep" of the phone as it was trying to connect with Will's phone. The breathy wails he uttered each time when the connection broke made his inner beast snarl at himself.

  
The way he was needy for the man-made Hannibal give up after an hour of unsuccessful calling and texting. He hated himself like this, so weak and vulnerable, like some stereotypical omega from a cheap erotic novel. He took the clothes to his nose again but even his heightened senses couldn't find any trace of Will's musk, at some point he lost his mind and started to chew on the fabric, licking the taste off and relishing in it. And now he was left with nothing that could elevate the building cramps in his lower abdomen from stress. Everything around was too sharp and wrong and so he did the only thing he could, he entered his mind palace and turned everything off. There was nothing besides the pristine marble walls and floors, artworks and books. He sat in his favourite chair and started to recall one after another of his favourite tomes, focusing on them and blocking any external input, until a doorbell rang. 

Hannibal opened his eyes and instantly all the suffering he inhibited so thoroughly was flooding his flesh. He didn't whimper, he couldn't, only hot puffs of air were leaving his lungs on the silent scream. The desolation he felt right this moment was like nothing he ever did. His body wasn't his own anymore, he could control his emotions but the things he was going through now were something beyond anyone could control chemically or psychologically. 

The ring sounded again and with the last few of his strength, he heaved himself to get to the door and send off anyone who was waiting there. He already called his secretary to inform all his patients of his indisposition for the foreseeable future. Also, none of his acquaintances wouldn't come unannounced. He opened a door a bit, looking at the floor as his abdomen sized again and was abruptly crowded into the wall of his hallway. 

On instinct, he wanted to fight off the man but then he breathed in and in a moment melted into strong arms that held onto his waist like it was a lifeline. 

'Will' the name was a whisper into alpha's chocolate curls but the tremor went through his body and he nuzzled harder into Hannibal's chest and then mating gland where the scent of his mate was the strongest. 

'Don't say a thing.' choked Will, lifting omega's shirt to touch fevered skin, his own was like ice and he was shivering. They were like lava and ice, the warmth of Hannibal's body seeped through each point their skin met and warmed Will's frozen flesh, and Will's touch took away the heat from the doctor's body like a glass of refreshing water in the summer heat. 

'Will-' started Hannibal but was stopped with nibbling on his mating bite, he relaxed further into the embrace and raked his long fingers through grimy curls. He scented Will's head, he smelled of the same distress he did, the earthy musk was replaced by bitter-sour taste of polluted earth and smell of too salty sweat. The combination made his lips curl in distaste, he wanted to take it away as fast as possible and restore the old one, the heavy thing that was as wild as calming for him to scent. 

'Will, we should-' he tried again, nuzzling into the curls and wrapping himself tighter around Will.

'I told you to shut up, so just do this one thing for me and just listen.' Growled Will, stretching his body so they would touch in more places.

Hannibal stood still and hard like steel, his mind seething with anger at Will's cockiness but his eyes closed and he only became more pliant in his arms in the next minutes, allowing alpha to take him away from the hallway into the living room and then onto the leather settee. It wasn't a perfect place for two adult men, but it had to be enough. 

When they finally settled, Will immediately draped himself over Hannibal's body, his nose still as close to his throat as it possibly could get without cutting through the skin. He breathed him deep into his system, everything slowly calming down as finally, he was with his mate, as it should be, forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both of them are emotionally unstable idiots and so they should be in pain. They are like children with their stupid love and obsession. Really guys, how long can both of you circle around each other?!?!?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look another chapter of this pitiful story. Well, hope you are ready for the feels and inside thoughts. Also, no porn anymore, only feels ahead.

They stayed like that for, what it felt like hours, just breathing each other in. They both smelled like old sweat and tears, which made them snuggle even closer, wanting to just get rid of acrid scents and replace them with their own. Hannibal couldn't contain happy sighs as Will kneaded his bare skin and layer of omega fat on his belly and hips under the shirt. He didn't look into his eyes even once but he didn't have to, he was able to decipher Will's thoughts on the subject of their bond. He felt the same- conflicted and vulnerable. He didn't want to let go of Will, he wouldn't allow him to, the alpha was his, even before both of them knew it. Of course, everything wasn't just caused by their biology, chips used by almost every unbonded omega and alpha didn't allow any accidents that made public, made up mostly by betas, gasp in shock and revulsion. There was no discrimination towards omegas like in the old times or unruly judgment towards "aggressive" alphas. With the help of pharmacology now everyone was beta until you found someone you wanted to mate with and then mating cycles were mild and regular. The unusual thing was with True Mates. Their compatibility was so deeply ingrained in their biology that even the highest-grade synthetic hormones couldn't cease the animal behaviour when presented with their mate's pure essence. That thing happened to them, there was no running away from it and Hannibal knew he didn't want to anymore. Will wormed somehow into his core without Hannibal's knowledge and gave a rise to something he thought he abandoned a long time ago. 

Hannibal patted Will's matted curls and rubbed soothing circles into his back that rose and fell in time with his deep breaths. His face was still hidden away in the crease of omega's shoulder and neck. 

Both of them didn't know where they stood with each other now. They couldn't handle the separation but at the same time, they were a threat to each other. Will was erratic in his plans and Hannibal was too steady, like two halves of the same coin. Hannibal could appreciate it, the juxtaposition which made their union so much more fascinating, and made it also as much dangerous. Will was like water when Hannibal was a fire, when they collided they would only destroy pieces of each other.

'But if we merge fully we could become one potent scalding steam.' Thought Hannibal lifting Will's shirt up to touch more of olive skin that now had a sickly gleam to it. He didn't like the look of it. His brows kneaded in displeasure as he rubbed his cheek to head to put more of his own happy scent on alpha.

Then, he could feel the ribs and vertebrate too well for his own liking. He promised himself to feed his alpha even if Will won't be keen on the idea.

'It's all your fault.' whispered Will and Hannibal could feel the slight dampness on his shoulder. Will was crying. The smell of tears was blocked by all other fragrances in the room but he couldn't mistake it for anything else. He wanted to see them, lick them from his cheeks and put them in Will's mouth with his own tongue but he controlled those urges.

'Why is that?' He still stroked Will in a subduing manner but alpha was just like a live wire in his arms, tense with anger and frustration, his claws in Hannibal's flanks didn't make omega even wince. He would look at them in the mirror with pleasure when Will leaves him.

'If you didn't call, my instincts wouldn't go into overdrive. Don't lie to me you didn't know about it. I know you plan your every move, always three steps ahead of me...' The sigh Will made was full of dread but also determination. 'I saw through you. You don't plan to beat me in this game.' He lifted his head, his cheeks were red as his ears and they looked almost angelic on the pale skin of his face. His pupils were like the centre of the cyclones that his irises were and Hannibal couldn't take his eyes away. 'You want to play this game of chess with me till the end of time.'

'Yes.' The breath escaped his lips without Hannibal's knowledge and even realizing that he couldn't correct the statement to hide his vulnerability or tell an outright lie, he didn't mind it. With this one word, he told Will all his future movements but when he saw the blank panic on alpha's face, he knew that it only muddled the water of Will's thoughts instead of clearing it. As they say, the darkest place is under the candle. 

He smiled politely and combed stray chocolate curls when Will hid back into himself and didn't see anything besides distorted pictures before his eyes. Hannibal saw him like that from time to time, running away from reality when his inner world called for his attention. And what a world it was... If he could, he would crawl into Will's cranium just to look at those magnificent neurons expanding and connecting, synapses firing with information to the bursting point where Will's consciousness has to deal with the puzzle pieces.

With the empath's pliant body in his arms, Hannibal relaxed again and put his head on the decorative pillow. He cradled Will's head with one hand on his nape and other under his arm and took Will with him, bringing his nose on his unprotected neck. In another lifetime he wouldn't allow anyone near such a vulnerable place, especially Will Graham, but presently it wasn't possible for the man to bite him in any other intention than to reaffirm their bond or sate his possessiveness. 

They quickly fell asleep. The dreamless void swallowing them whole after days without true rest, that could be found only in one's mate. Their bodies fit like puzzle pieces even on the too-small sofa. Alpha's body moulding into omega's so there was no space in between them. Even in sleep, their hands roamed the other's body, feeling for warm skin that skill wasn't scent marked. Will nuzzled into Hannibal's neck when the other laid his head on coarse curls. Their biology slowly finding its natural rhythm when being near their other half. The thing that woke both men was hunger. The growl deep from their guts raised them up from deep sleep to harsh reality. 

'Our bodies are in need of sustenance to fully recuperate after the treatment you subjected them to.' said Hannibal into Will's curls. Alpha was still trying to hide his eyes so he wouldn't see something in omega's gaze that made his rational thought crumble again.

'Don't try to place blame on me.' Growled Will into Hannibal's shirt. He lifted himself and still without looking started to take off his ruined clothes. Now they stank of omega, and as much his body loved the scent, his logical part of the brain rebelled against it. 'It was you who had to come to my house when I came back. It was you who allowed us to become some animals and fully bond. You just couldn't leave me alone, could you?!' The last sentence was spat out like he tasted venom on his tongue, bitter and deadly. 

Omega only inhaled and exhaled slowly and stood up, straightening his clothes and patting his hair into a semblance of tidiness. He could taste something sour on his tongue but he held his mask well on his face. 

'I have to apologize then, but you should also do so. I believe it's no one's fault at this point, we just have to live the consequences of our unmanageable biology.' His voice was low and sounded of reason but Will only scoffed at it.

'Yes. I'm truly sorry for ever meeting you.' He didn't look when a grimace of hurt flew by Hannibal's features and disappeared again behind the mask. He went into the direction of the nearest bathroom not caring anymore how to deal with his omega. He looked into the mirror and saw himself for the first time in days. He looked like a disaster, even more so than when he had encephalitis. Clumps of hair were plastered to his skull and sweaty forehead, there were purple bags under his eyes and his beard grew out giving him a look of a caveman, his skin was so pale that marks Hannibal left on his skin looked more horrendous and the clean bite on his mating gland that now shined with bonding oil gave rise to horrible laugh. Because what now? He couldn't even handle separation for a few days so what would happen if he tried to kill Hannibal? What if someone else tried to kill him? Or contain him in some cage made of bulletproof glass with no way in and no way out? Will he go mad? Will he become so feral that he will kill everything around and then himself when grief strikes his aching heart? Or will he just starve to death like some dog on his master's grave? 

A shudder ran down Will's spine at all those images. What would become of him if his bonded Omega wasn't there? And what would become of Hannibal?

He saw how he looked when he opened the door to his house. So crushed in his own body that he couldn't even register it was Will until he smelled him. They were the death of each other now, and all of this because Hannibal couldn't handle another retreat from Will. He could see it now, the man was so engrossed with him that he lost sight of the reason for that one moment and now they were here. The omega was more obsessed with him than Will could ever predict but what he had to say in it?

He went under the hot stream of the shower, slowly feeling like a human being. He lathered his hands with soap and started to clean himself of all the grime that accumulated over the days he spent without omega in his arms. The smell of sandalwood and cinnamon penetrated his nostrils conjuring an image omega under the shower. It was that scent he could taste in his tongue when he licked his skin. The spices, honeysuckle and overripe apples- the scent of omega in the heat he bred for days. The mixture made him salivate uncontrollably and with shaking hands, he altered the temperature to freezing one so his slowly filling cock would not make him more uncomfortable with the whole situation than he already was.

He came back to his thoughts about their situation. He had to accept that Hannibal felt some sort of possessive, sick craving for him but what about his feelings? Why did he do all this? Why did he run as far as he could, tasted blood and agony and still came back here? To this man? To his friend and anchor? To the enemy and the devil? His head was so clear at that time when he finally breathed in the clean air and just ran until his muscles gave out and his lungs prickled with red-hot pain. Everything was so clear at that time, the blue sky, green leaves and the idea of who he was and what he had to do. But now it was just like a dream, or more like a nightmare. He didn't feel guilty, he did what he had to but for what? For Hannibal Lecter? Did he snap? Did he hold onto his humanity for so long only for it to be snapped in half by curious omega? 

He wanted to laugh. Just laugh at the ruthlessness of the world, at the sadistic curiosity of his bonded, at his stupidity and naivety. He became what Hannibal wanted him to be and now in all his glory he presented himself on the golden platter and bonded to the most vicious and disturbing man he had ever had to profile. 

His life was a farce.

And he could do nothing to change that, at least not now. He wouldn't sacrifice more of his life to Hannibal's whims, and so he couldn't kill the man or imprison him, not now when the bond was so new and demanding. But what after a few weeks, months, a year or years? He didn't know. He knew little of how True Mates worked, only basic knowledge acquired from gossip, history and biology lessons in high school and a few classes at the university. He had to know more, without basic intelligence he couldn't plan anything. Hannibal knew more than him and probably would look into the topic soon enough. He couldn't allow the man to have the upper hand again. Not again. 

With final scrub to his scalp to get rid of the foam from shampoo, he turned off the shower and took the fluffy towel to dry his skin and hair off. The ever-gracious host that Hannibal was, leaving not only it but also the whole attire for him to wear.

\--------------

They sat across the table, not looking at each other and not saying a word but focused solely on their plates and vegetarian curry Hannibal made. Will's thoughts still weaved like a vine around the problem of their bond. On the other side of the table Hannibal was going through all the information he had at hand. He learned more about True Mates than Will but it was small and not a long-lived advantage. If he wanted to use it, he would have to be fast and precise in creating his strategies, which was almost impossible with Will. He could predict many things but in the end, his alpha could find just this one thing that could destroy all his meticulous plans and leave Hannibal hurting in ways he didn't know were possible for him. 

There were a few possibilities that he could predict: Will killing him and then himself, which was the most drastic option but at the same time was likely with how the empath was reacting to a stimulus. The second one was being gradually seduced to come into the cage of Will's making, and the third one was acceptance which was the most questionable in happening. Those were the most obvious routes Will could take, but of course, they weren't the only ones. He could try to run away again, this time further away and destroy himself and the omega as slowly as possible. He could also spend time with him to only wound him with his words and actions. Will already noticed Hannibal had a weak spot for him and he would use it in any way he could to stick needles into psychiatrist's accessible heart. 

There was much he didn't know about this Will Graham. Too much for his liking if he had to be honest with himself. He could see the man changed, was more guarded with his expressions, more vicious in his wording. He had darkness around him and the distinct smell of copper? Hannibal didn't know if it was before as the atrocious aftershave and hormonal chip dulled his alpha scent. But if it was the newest addition to his earthy musk, something had happened in those few months to add this flavour. Something dark and bloody, something Hannibal absolutely wanted to see.

But the safest option to ensure that neither of them made any violent movements was for Hannibal to be his more "human" self but with the addition to becoming more omegan in his need for his alpha. It wasn't frankly that hard to achieve this type of acting as it couldn't be called acting when his instincts prompted him to behave this way. He would become the perfect mate, attending and loving. He couldn't even imagine how the alpha would react to it, an enigma his alpha was, but he didn't try this road before so it was an experiment of sorts. 

The corners of his lips lifted a bit at the new, interesting project he had before him. He gave Will a stick and now he was giving him a carrot, so how did his little alpha would react to that?

They finished their meal without uttering any sound and made their way into the study where Hannibal poured both of them a finger of magnificent woodsy and smooth japanese whisky. They sat beside each other on the settee, their shoulders and thighs touching. The need for constant contact was still there and now there was no fight in both of them to sit in separate chairs.

'Do you think anything good will come out of this bond?' Said Will, licking his lips after the first sip of old rich alcohol.

'It depends on how you see good.' Hannibal's laser focus was fully now on Will, the wealthy notes of oak and caramel forgotten.

'I mean for us. I know for a fact that it will just be one big catastrophe for everyone who will be in your way to get what you want.' Sighed Will and relaxed some more into the settee, the exhaustion of this situation making him laxer with how Hannibal seemed to hide his claws and fangs for now.

'Our union was caused by something that no one could stop from happening, fate if you will.' Will huffed at that and took a big gulp of expensive alcohol, he certainly wasn't drunk enough for this kind of conversation. Hannibal only blinked in visible irritation and put his head on Will's shoulder.

It could be too much at any other time but now instead of tensing up, alpha caressed the soft blond locks at Hannibal's nape. It was a middle ground, a pact to put down their weapons for now. The problem was that Hannibal didn't treat it as such. It was just the beginning of his master plan to make Will fall for him so deep he couldn't crawl out of the hole omega created for his feelings. He will make Will's heart a perfect nest for himself.

'We can't predict what kind of impact it will have on us but I don't believe we are heroes in some Greek tragedy. Even if fate bonded us this way there is no telling that all this will end in one spectacular calamity. We are the ones who select the path, Will.'

'So thought Oedipus, Antigone, Agamemnon or Medea.'

'True, but if so you have to recognize that fate brought us together.' Hannibal sipped on his drink and closed his eyes, the calloused fingers now caressing his exposed neck with soothing circles. He could get used to this sweet touch and the vibrant smell of rich soil and blood that was wafting off Will's scent gland.

'So if we are fated then this will end in our death as one can't exist without the other. Amazing prospect, I have to tell you that.' Snickered Will.

'Or we are simply chaotically intertwined by mother nature and have no path caved before us, simply left alone in this grand terrible universe to fend for ourselves without meaning until the end of our lifespans.'

'Existential much?' Chuckled Will and drowned the rest of the whisky. He put the glass on the coffee table and put his nose to Hannibal's head. He hated the fact it made his brain go into the high-like state. The oxytocin coursing in his veins in such quantities he didn't even notice as he nuzzled omega, bringing their bodies closer. They both sighed in relief, the separation anxiety wouldn't leave them for a few days now.

'One has to think about the purpose of it all.' Will hummed in response, now half-heartedly listening to his ex-psychiatrist as he could feel the warmth of his body sipping into his 'or the lack of it.'

'Either road will bring us anguish.' Whispered Will 'You knew it but still took it.'

Hannibal didn't reply, the insight valid but buried deep under other thoughts when he mated alpha again. But now that it was addressed he couldn't stop thinking about it. It won't be just slight discomfort he felt when Will was incarcerated. This will be a torment that of hellish punishments. He could only hope for Will to stay this soft and delicate a bit longer, so he would see what adoring Hannibal could be. 

Obsessively so.


	7. Chapter 7

Will stayed with Hannibal that day, and a day after and the day after that and then the world and time was forgotten. Neither of them addressed the elephant in the room and so they spent their days on mending their physical and psychological health after the whole separation anxiety crisis. They didn't sleep together or touched each other throughout the day, even if both of them had continuous impulses to do so. 

Hannibal knew he couldn't be too hasty or too aggressive in this. He had to accustom Will to his delicate touch once again. He had to condition him to relax when he felt a sweet caress made by the tips of Hannibal's fingers or a fast brush of lips to his olive skin, which looked healthier already. For now, he waited. He didn't have to wait long as they created a sort of routine after the first night. They didn't spend time, per se, they just were in the same room most of the time, not speaking or even looking at each other, just breathing in the presence of their bonded. But after dinner came nightcap and settee where they sat and touched. They didn't kiss or hug or even nuzzled. It was enough to feel the heat of their twined hands, touch to one's neck or hair, thighs touching or head on one's shoulder. Their touches were so pure and almost unconscious they didn't speak about them. Hannibal knew if he said anything Will would probably only shy away and hide behind his forts made of steel. The man was in unbelievable need for softness and adoration but he could never accept it from Hannibal. Not when it was said what it was.

As for Will, he just used the opportunity to calm his fried nerves and focus on finding ways to destroy Hannibal in some marvellously disturbing manner. He used Hannibal's tablet to find more information about True Mates, which still were sparse, but nothing favourable for his plans came up. Most of the things he found he had already noticed in his relationship with his ex-psychiatrist right now. But he still spent every waking hour in search of some miracle that could just undo this whole mess. Of course, he could play docile for a bit longer but in truth, the core of his being still boiled with anger and need for revenge, for finding justice to all Hannibal's injustice. When he didn't research, he slept, and it wasn't a quiet sleep. He writhed and mewled when he dreamt about Hannibal crawling to him, in heat, naked, straddling his lap and putting his beautiful, manly hands on his chest to bury his claws into his skin and then digging deeper, taking hold of his ribs and prying them open. Omega then crawled nearer and nearer to pluck his heart out like a ripe fruit of sin, eat it and whisper "This is mine anyway, Will." into his ear. The hot breath smelling of fresh blood and overripe apples and then somehow dive into his chest and close the ribs, muscles, skin from inside out. He was whole, and when he looked at his chest there was no indication that this thing happened but he could feel that something was wrong. Instead of beating heart, there was something squirming every so often, like a snake or a parasite. Just making a place for himself as Will's new heart. 

When he woke with a scream stuck in his throat he never remembered those dreams but he knew he didn't want to go back to that other reality that was his imaginations. He then took a tablet or a laptop and was going through research after research about genetics, biochemistry, psychology and even sexology to find something that could help him avoid the thing from his dreams he couldn't remember but still felt under his skin. His heart, crushing his ribs from inside as if he ran and ran rather than sat in the guest bedroom and read about how bonding amplifies the hormonal changes that in turn cause behavioural ones. It was obvious to him but he still was skimming through the article to find something useful. He was apprehensive of what was happening right now. Omega was more open with his thoughts and emotions which couldn't mean anything good. It looked like Hannibal was telling Will his sinister masterplan by smiling or by intertwining their hands. It felt as good as it felt bad. His body craved it, and so his hormonally induced brain but his reason, his human part shuddered with disdain, or at least it wanted to. He was a monster but he still wanted to retain something that should be human. He didn't want to be swallowed whole by this sticky shadow that always whispered behind the door at the back of his mind. The door that was bolted shut for the better part of his life and was opened just a little bit by Hannibal's manipulation. 

It was also terrifying how easy it was for him to just go with Hannibal's flow. Even after knowing everything, he still found him calming. Their discussions before sleep still as abstract as always made his inner alpha preen under the attention Hannibal gave his every observation about life, people, literature or science. 

Those few days were the peace before the storm that their life would be again. However, before it hit, a sort of breakthrough was made between them. Will sat in his designed chair in the kitchen and was going through the Tattle Crime as the old habits die hard and Hannibal was just preparing their first non-vegetarian dish - whole duck with cranberries, oranges and Himalayan salt and carrot puree. Will accepted the meat only because it wasn't possible for anyone to fabricate human meat as a whole raw bird. Still, sparkles danced in Will's eyes as he, this time, didn't take his eyes from him when he danced gracefully around the kitchen. He loved the spotlight, and attention most people gave him was undeniably pleasant but his alpha's gaze was so much more perceptive, potent and hungry. Yes, hungry. Will probably didn't know about it himself, as always, he was clueless to his more true feelings and appetites.

'New killer is on the loose.' Stated Will with faked nonchalance. Hannibal only smirked to himself as he was putting their dinner into the oven. 

'Are you interested to go back to Jack and find him or her for him?'

'Of course not.' Scoffed Will 'His way of utilizing me broke me.' And after a second. 'He broke me with your assistance.' His voice was even but the emotion behind it was apparent. Hannibal knew Will wouldn't let go of old grudges, at least not yet. He strolled to the french press and started making them a cup of rich black gold.

'You believe yourself shattered Will? Like the fine china, you were supposed to be for Jack?' He glanced over. Will averted his eyes.

'I don't know what to believe.' He murmured. 'If I was fine china then yes, I got broken down into pieces by you two. And then stuck back together by-' he halted, his lips formed a thin line and his brows knitted in concentration and displeasure. 

'By what, Will?' Hannibal couldn't miss such an opportunity to glimpse what Will hid. He gave Will a cup of coffee, black with two sugars and leaned a bit into his space. His pheromones sailing from his body to relax and make his alpha more pliant. 

'By pitchfork hot black tar that sticks to the edges of broken china and everything else, clogging each gap and rift. Choking me and everyone else with its putrid scent and taste.' He looked at Hannibal, his omega, his fate, his doom.

Hannibal couldn't breathe, the tang of old blood that Will carried with him wasn't a tang anymore, it penetrated his senses. The hurricane in his eyes was awe-inspiring and Hannibal just wanted to take his face in his palms and look at them till the end of the world. The uncertain knowledge of what Will did was making his spine ignite. Will killed. He went through a purgatory that was BSHCI and took hold of power in Hell. 

But he still denied himself, because he couldn't kill Hannibal, and if he did he would hide again. The omega would never allow it, Will couldn't hide, not before himself nor him,not anymore. He would show him that the black sticky tar was actually gold that made him so much praiseworthy.

Regardless, he didn't make a move, Will was too unsettled for Hannibal to initiate their customary caressing right now.

'Not everyone, dear Will. Not me.'

'Look at your wrists and say that again.' Hissed Will and put down his coffee on the side-table. Hannibal smiled indulgently as he cocked his head to the left and gazed at his wrists.

'It's a remembrance of the time of your turmoil. Caged behind the bars like some sort of animal in the zoo for crimes that weren't yours.' He sipped his coffee slowly as Will was fighting his words.

'Yes, for crimes that were yours instead. You put me into this cage and freed me. Broken me and mended with tar. What do you want from me? It's not only curiosity, I see it now. I see the whole of you.' His stare was drilling into Hannibal and his right hand gripped omega's exposed forearm. Hannibal didn't know how to answer that. He didn't expect Will to be so forward with addressing emotions involved in their relationship.

'Your company is indispensable to me.' He kneeled before Will and took the hand from his forearm into his warm palm. Caressing Will's knuckles and his knee through the borrowed slacks with his other hand. Will's breath stuttered but his eyes didn't leave his mate. 'I found myself unable to appreciate solitary life, Will. And I don't imagine it's only caused by our compatible biology.' 

That was it. He showed his hand, a bit of it at least. Nothing that Will didn't already suspect but so precious as it exposed to the daylight. Will looked at their hands, then at Hannibal's soft maroon eyes. It was true, his guard was down, he opened himself to Will in the simplest way possible. Now the question was what would he do about this exposed weakness? Should he harm the ebony Stagman and wait for the monster to retaliate? Or should he wait? Or maybe, just maybe, fall deeper into the black tar?

His thoughts were swirling like a swarm of flies but his body already decided for him. He brought his free hand from armrest to Hannibal's sharp cheekbone and caressed it with the delicacy he didn't suspect in himself. Omega's pupils widened and his lashes fluttered at the touch. He didn't anticipate it. He really couldn't predict Will. Will's hand went slowly to Hannibal's nape and he pulled him from his knees into a more uncomfortable position where one of Hannibal's knees was on the plush seat of the chair and the other leg was supporting his weight on the floor. Will brought his face near, so near, Hannibal could smell the bittersweet scent of coffee from alpha's mouth. Will's lips ghosted near his for a moment and then went to his bite mark. Will nuzzled into his neck and nipped at the skin of his throat but did nothing to undress him to mouth at the mark. 

He really didn't have to as Hannibal did it for him and then guided his mate, pressing his mouth to his bonding mark. Will bit delicately and then worried the skin between his teeth. Hannibal hid his face in his red sweater he made Will wear and moaned. A tremor went through the alpha and he licked the skin between his teeth to then suck it.

A thought struck Hannibal like lighting. Will was marking him, he was marking him consciously and voluntarily. The omega could only congratulate himself at choosing the right path in the development of their alliance. The whole thing took mere minutes until Hannibal's phone rang and Will became still like a statue. His mind finally catching up to what his body was doing. He slowly drew back his face from his ex-psychiatrist skin and condemned his inner alpha for making this situation much more frightening.

'You should get that. I'm still surprised no one came looking for you after vanishing for a few days after you came to visit me.'

Hannibal sighed in annoyance and closed his eyes at the sheer dissatisfaction he felt right now. Someone cutting short his time during the epiphany of sensations between them. He lifted himself gracefully with husky 'Excuse me' and went to the phone on the kitchen wall. He looked at the number and instantly his mood soured. It was Jack, which meant inconvenience to his plan. Or maybe?

'Hello, Jack. Can I help you with something? You haven't contacted me in some time.' His voice was even, pleasant and full of fake interest.

'A lot was going on with the incarceration of Chilton and new killers started popping up like mushrooms after the rain.' Excused himself, Jack. 'And yes. You could help me with something. Something I didn't expect to be asking from you after the whole predicament that was between you and Will.' Jack sighed audibly. There was a pregnant silence for a few seconds but Hannibal didn't break it as it was wanted from him. 'I can't contact him and Alana said she got the phone call from your number from Will-' there was a hesitation there. Just a slight one and then Jack's typical dominance showed up again. 'I need to speak with him.'

Hannibal glanced at Will who stared at the oven with a grimace at hearing who called the omega.

'I don't think Will is ready to speak with you, Jack. He went through a lot-'

'I need to hear it from him, doctor Lecter.' Jack cut in, causing Hannibal to pursue his lips with disdain at lack of manners. 

'Very well.' He turned fully to Will and went to him with the phone with an uncovered microphone for Jack to hear the whole exchange. 'Will. Jack would like to speak with you.' Will looked at him with a lifted brow and a slight smirk and just made himself relax into the chair. He saw what would bring the most pleasure to his omega. But he didn't do it because of that. He did it because it would make Hannibal show his belly some more.

'Tell him I can't speak with him yet. I still need time to think and I came back only because I had no other choice.' 

The corners of the older man's lips lifted a bit and crow feet showed around his eyes in delight. He lifted the phone to his ear only to hear Jack breath heavily at the other end of the line. 

'As you have probably heard, Jack. He will come to you when he's ready.'

There was a huff of bitterness at the other end of the line. 'Fine. Just tell him to call me when he deems it fit.' There was a note of sarcasm and disdain but Hannibal knew Jack couldn't allow himself to be crude with Will. At least not until his precious profiler could disappear again. 

'Goodbye, Jack. I will pass the message to Will.'

'Goodbye, Doctor Lecter.'

Hannibal glanced at still smirking Will and went back to put the phone in its place. 'You didn't even have to look for dear uncle Jack, as he found you.' He came back to his coffee and sipped on it, and with displeasure put it back as the heat left it, like their momentarily pleasant affair. Will closed his eyes and put his head on the plush headrest.

'I never had to look for him. It was him who came to me with another case and another request.' He sighed, his head lolling from side to side.

'Yet you allowed him to. You submitted to his will, dear Will.' At the words a tight line formed at Will's forehead.

'I'm not gonna fight him like some control-obsessed alpha in some dominance fight from ancient times.' Scoffed Will.

'Nor should you.' Whispered Hannibal as he drifted closer to his bonded and put his hand on the headrest, near Will's silky curls so the alpha could feel the heat radiating from it. 'But you could have twisted him. Jack is a simple man, who often ignores things that he doesn't want to be there. It would be-'

'I'm not you!' Hissed Will, his whole body pulling away from Hannibal's, his eyes once again fierce with a grudge. 'I don't dance around people to make them see something that I'm not. I don't wear a human suit as you do just to create a mist of deception and fake kindness.'

'You do.' Purred Hannibal getting his face to Will's eyes level, his maroon looking more like drying blood than anything. 'You do with me and through the whole time spent in BSHCI.'

Will blinked once, and once again and then he took a deep breath before he stood up abruptly causing Hannibal to back away enough for him to flee. Hannibal only smiled to himself as he looked after him. He expected the rejection of cruel truth after all, but he knew that Will wouldn't be able to lie to himself for much longer. He went to the oven to check on the duck and as he was going to the fridge to get the ingredients for the dessert he heard the unmistakable click of the front door opening and closing. A sour look sneaked in and with one blink it ceased to exist. Omega didn't like the fact that Will left their den but there was no point in indulging his omegan parts as he reasonably expected the escape in one form or another.

He could wait, he had patience and time. Also, he had a bond on his side. Bond was like a leash for both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for all plotholes and changes to characters or how they feel or behave. It can be quite inconsistent as I forget what I wrote after posting it 😅 also we are going with some plot from now on as Jack is just waiting to catch Will in his FBI clutches again! So buckle up and have some bittersweet moments. 
> 
> Your kudos make Will less unhappy puppy and your comments make Hannibal moan louder than typically🤭


	8. Chapter 8

Hannibal looked at the clock for the third time in the past hour and determined that he will have to eat this meal alone. Somehow it felt wrong. Wrong in the way one looks at the crooked frame of a painting and wants to straighten it up. It wasn't a bad feeling per se but it was irritating and never-ending. He looked at the laid table and decided to straighten the picture by removing Will's table setting. When he sat down again and started to carve the duck to put onto his plate he stilled. 

There was a feeling of intense turmoil inside his abdomen and all appetite left him. He looked at the pink meat of duck's leg and crispy skin that glistened with sweet-salty glaze and sighed. He put it away and went to the kitchen to put it in the still-hot oven. He put away his table setting and moved to the study to go through the newest articles about bonded and new methods of therapies. The latter reminded him that he had to contact his secretary to slowly prepare his schedule. There was so much time one could spend without some external stimuli, even though he couldn't really call his patients that much of stimuli. 

Hannibal found himself pleasantly surprised at the ease Will ingrained into his home-life. The silent companionship was as comfortable in the closed space as the heated discussions before the fireplace. It was intriguing. He never found himself so engrossed with someone else to not be constantly alerted at their every move. It was of course caused by their hormonal changes and bond but only partly. If Will wasn't Will it wouldn't be such an effortless existence. 

He could only imagine that if the bonded alpha was someone utterly tasteless he would go down the more hostile road. Probably the road that included many opiates, psychotics and other interesting drugs that would make the alpha pliant like a little lamb only for Hannibal to live through his life bonded to the vegetable. It would be the most opportune way as he wouldn't be able to kill him or her. But with Will? With his marvellous mind, dark gaze and scent of soil and blood? Oh, he could sacrifice a lot. Of course, he expected that this sacrifice would bear fruits sweeter than the bite that comes with sacrificing goods. Already so much sweeter with Will's half-confessions and need for touch. Touch that was like a reassurance to his hormonally-addled brain. It wasn't like it didn't affect Hannibal too but years of control allowed him to cage few of unwarranted demands omega biology wanted from him. With the permanent scent of soil and old blood came calmness of nerves and with touches before sleep, he could rest effortlessly. The constant need to stick to Will, like a newborn to its mother, seeking protection and care, was just a low hum at the back of his mind. 

Will, on the other hand, was more instinctual if he liked it or not. Or even if he knew about it. He was the one to wander around the house from time to time to look for danger or come to Hannibal, just observing him secretly( which wasn't a secret at all to the omega). He was more tactile before sleep and easier to sway towards the doctor when he let some of his pheromones "leak out". Predictably he hasn't even noticed those changes in himself and so omega used it as much as it was reasonable. 

When he was finished with catching up to the newest information he looked at his watch and his mask slipped completely. It was already dinnertime and Will didn't come back. There was a tang of worry but it was dismissed entirely as the typical omega response. The feeling that burned the brightest was bitterness. This feeling was new and old to him at the same time. He felt it long ago, when he still was a young boy but now as a man, he associated it only with Will. It wasn't a good emotion, most people would prefer to not experience it even for the prize but Hannibal couldn't stop savouring it. It was acidic and sharp and so bizarre he couldn't stop examing it. 

Most of the world population was an annoyance, a plaything that he would discard if necessary but ultimately used for his own gain and pleasure. Beautiful men and women, some interesting, others not would pick his interest and he would play. But he never was so much invested in any of it, not enough to feel the bitterness of disappointment or the sweetness of unconscious need for touch. He felt that long ago and now again. With Will by his side. Over the time he spent unaccompanied by Will he noted how much alpha made him feel. Not the surface level of pleasant feeling from being praised or maiming FBI once again, nor the displeasure when being presented with the rude. No. Will made him radical, a bit uncontrollable and more prone to being indigent in his involvement with him. 

It was disconcerting. It was ecstatic.

\---------

He rested but he didn't sleep. He glanced at his clock and saw 2 am glaring at him with its hands of the clock. 

Will didn't come back and Hannibal couldn't eat. He knew where his alpha was. The man couldn't run far away again so soon after the first anxiety attack. But the need for seclusion and control over his own mind could bring Will to only one place- his home in Wolf Trap. Hannibal knew he should leave him alone, Will needed time to think everything over and come to some conclusions that would or wouldn't be in favour of the doctor. Nevertheless, the intervention would result in more hostility and isolation which definitely wasn't called for. 

And so he waited.

But the jittery feeling of something being wrong still wouldn't leave his bones. And so he stood up and allowed his biology to take full control of his actions. He dressed up, prepared for every eventuality and got into his Bentley. He took one breath in, adjusted his seat and drove.

\---------

When Hannibal got to Will's house he had expected many things. 

But this. THIS he definitely didn't expect.

When he got to the unruly road that headed to Will's home, the first thing that he immediately noticed were turned off lights. The entirety of the land was engulfed in the darkness of the moonless night. The only beams of light were that of his car lights. Which meant that Will was asleep, dead drunk or away. But when he exited the car and turned off the car light to instead turn on a small flashlight, he saw a bit of warm light escaping from under the doors to the shed that was a bit away from the house. 

He stopped before the door, take notice of any sounds and observing the glints of light that changed with figure or figures that were moving there. He waited for any sound that could give him any indication as to what his dear alpha was doing there and then he smelled the air. 

There was a scent of fresh blood. His eyelids immediately snapped open and he wrecked the door ajar. 

There was his alpha. Standing in only boxers and stretched T-shirt, his pupils looking like two pools of tar as he broke his attention from the male carcass on the old make-shift table with plastic sheets on it to Hannibal. His hand were slick with blood from the chest cavity but his clothes were almost pristine in their ordinary greyness.

'Oh, Will.' Murmured omega staying in the doorway for a second and looking at alpha with so much happiness in his eyes that Will had to blink a few times to wake up from the trance he was in. There was a smile dancing in the corners of Hannibal's lips and gold gleam in his eyes. He even almost purred. Will stood up straighter then and puffed out his chest a bit, his shoulders going back.

'Hannibal.' Said Will with a steady voice and calm that omega hadn't seen in him before. ' If you will.' Will looked at the still open door and looked back at the body.

Hannibal almost grinned and turned around to close the door. He didn't even think twice that he showed his back and so the opportunity for Will to attack. He wouldn't.

He turned around and Will didn't even look at him anymore, rather focusing entirely on the body. He looked at it cocking his head to the left as his gaze flicked from the sternum and coral bones where the beginning of Y-shaped incision was to the navel where it ended. The neck was under unnatural angle which provided Hannibal with the cause of death. There wasn't anything interesting in the body, some bruises from the probable struggle with Will, the liver had the beggings of cirrhosis where the fibrosis and inflammation were visible and the lungs were that of a smoker. Not anything that he couldn't expect from the body of a 50-year-old man with evident callouses on his hands from hard work as some low blue-collar worker. But the piercing stare Will grant the corpse had the affinity to that of a detective looking for the clues as to why the crime was caused.

Hannibal looked at the body again, trying to find something that would give him leverage as to why this particular man was chosen. And then he caught a glimpse of-

'What time is it?' Asked Will in gravely voice, now his full attention on omega. Hannibal looked at his watch with nonchalance as a slight tremor of threat went through his spine. 

'Quarter past three.'

'Two monsters coming out at the Devil's hour to wreak havoc on the world, aren't we?' Smiled Will as coldness seeped from his blue eyes when he looked into omega's eyes.

'You believe us to be supernatural beings, Will?' Said, Hannibal circling the table to put something between them and to look closely at the body which, yes, was that of an omega male. He comprehended that he disequlibrated Will a bit with the bonding, intimacy and small manipulations in the privacy of their den but to slaughter someone because of the man being omega like Hannibal? It wasn't Will. At least not the Will he knew. With answers to his previous questions came even more questions. The most important one being - who he was looking at?

'No. Not in the literal sense of this word. But you have to know that you were called Devil once.' Will smirked.

'And by who if you could share?' There was mask of the calm interest but his eyes showed everything Will had to know. 

'Abel Gideon. Another piece on the chessboard who saw much more than anyone expected.' The satisfaction mixed with the offence in omega's eyes at what Will circled the table to get nearer his bonded. The toll of not having his mate near was still creaking in his bones. Hannibal's body tensed at the movement but it was so minuscule that if Will didn't pay attention he wouldn't even notice it under the heavy cashmere overcoat. He reached for the bloodied hunting knife and there was a caution in Hannibal's eyes as he observed each smooth move of his alpha's body and hands. Hands that looked so wonderfully gruesome as blood slowly dried on them. The smell of it reminding him of the same tang in alpha's scent. His eyes flicked to Will's but there was nothing he could read from them and so he didn't move and waited for the situation to develop further as to decide what had to be done.

Will stopped beside him and took a deep breath of air that smelled like his omega. His muscles naturally relaxing and his lashes fluttering a bit with pleasure. He took the knife with his other hand, handle first, and offered it to Hannibal's gloved hand. Omega stared at the tool for a second and a dark smile bloomed on his lips as he took the blade. There would be no evidence whatsoever on it with leather gloves in place. 

'The piece that got disposed of by Chesapeake Ripper.' Said Hannibal coming nearer the body to proceed with the "autopsy". 

'A piece that knew too much and not enough. He saw the Devil in you, telling me how you are smoke. He was right, you know?' Will examined how dexterous fingers held the knife, with all the elegance one wouldn't suspect from such cruel and old device. Hannibal put the knife where the line ended and started to go lower, see for himself if he didn't imagine the man being an omega and started to look for the uterus that would be peeking out from between ropes of the intestines when he moves them to the side.

'If you see Devil in me then what kind of monster are you, Will?' 

'The one who made the Devil fall.' Whispered seductively alpha into Hannibal's ear. The heat of his body oozing from each pore to be felt through layers and layers of fabric. Something coiled inside his stomach, demanding for Hannibal to lean into the broad chest and nuzzle into the marked neck. Instead, he leaned to the table to get the metal forceps and lifted the intestines to see what he expected- the crumbled uterus. 

'You believe yourself to be God, Will?' Asked Hannibal turning around to look into grinning face of alpha. His features that of sleek cat that got the canary.

'If you want to call it that.' The was an edge to it and Hannibal realized once again that he knew nothing about this new creation before him.

'And how would you call it?' Said doctor sliding nearer to take Will's face into his gloved hands. His thumbs caressing little flush on alpha's cheekbones as his little fingers angled Will's jaw so he would be looking at him as he towered over him in such close proximity. 

'Free will.' Will's eyes flicked from his soft plush lips to marron eyes, pupils dilating as Hannibal's tongue peeked to lick the bottom lip.

Alpha crashed into him. Pinning Hannibal to the table as he devoured his mouth. He moaned when Hannibal pulled his silky curls to change the angle to have better access. Will's hands couldn't decide where they wanted to stay, they held to the table, then the expensive overcoat, then omega's shoulders making Hannibal lower himself, enclosing Will in his body. The bannister of the table dug painfully into his back and so to elevate the pressure he shoved his thigh between Will's legs where his hard length begged to be addressed. With surprise alpha bit Hannibal's bottom lips and tasted blood, moaning obscenely as he licked it. Hannibal growled at the pain but then he tasted his own life-essence on Will's lips and he completely ignored the small displeasure. 

Will rutted into his thigh as they kissed and Hannibal melted into his hot flesh, he felt as if they faded into each other as their bodies undulated in perfect rhythm. The smell of sandalwood mixed with the smell of rich earth, the scents of old blood, honeysuckle and apples combining into a perfect blend that made both their minds swim with it. 

They kissed, breathing each other in, rutted into each other and then Hannibal felt-

Blankness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter, another drama. I don't know, I just can't stop writing drama when it comes to them. They are just too much of drama queen characters not to make them this way I guess. Eh anyway I want to thank you for all the kudos and especially for comments because they truly motivate me to continue this story which somehow changes all the time in my mind haha. 
> 
> So what do you think? Tell me your theories as to why "blankness"?^^ See ya in the next chapter <3


	9. Chapter 9




	10. Chapter 10

The first thing he could discern from the bundle of sensations was a distinct fuzziness after head trauma or presumably being cut off from air supply. His breathing didn't change a bit when the next sensation came, which was a sharp feeling of cut skin near his neck and then there was the sting of broken skin under pressure around his throat. The last things he allowed to come to him was the coldness of the floor as he laid on his side, searing heat on his back and twisting pain below his navel. He didn't allow himself to move just yet, the need to compose a plan in the state of vulnerability being his top priority. Memories and thoughts came like one big wave crashing into his conscious mind and sternness painted his features. 

It was obvious what happened. The problem laid in what he would do with that information. There was pure rage burning inside him, needing him to slaughter the one who attempted to kill him. The feeling of it was like a catharsis that washed over him, making him think more clearly about alpha that was trembling like a leaf, glued to his back and clutching his waist. He didn't have to look back to recognize the symptoms of the retribution their biology subjected them to when one's mate wouldn't play by the rules. It would be so easy to drug Will right now, cutting him off from the real world and himself. But there was a plan in place, and sentiments that wouldn't allow Hannibal to simply get rid of his alpha. He could slowly consume him, of course, but would it bring peace to his burning heart?

For now, he decided, there was no need to derive from the process he had in mind. Will was now like a caught wild animal that bit hands which tried to feed him. Hannibal could wait it out, sacrifice a bit more to eat sweet fruits of alpha's devotion and loyalty. Will had so much potential, and was as much a predator as his omega. The image of Will when he came into the shed still burning brightly in his mind palace. He will be patient, for this, for now.

Hannibal took a deep breath, his chest expanding nominally and to his pleasure, a small whine could be heard behind his back and strong arms tightened around him some more. But the feeling abruptly changed to that of agony, his abdominal muscles pulling taut around the alien object that was pushed into them. At that moment it came to Hannibal that the situation was much more pressing in its threat to his own life. He tried to gauge the feeling of how deep the knife was and with a measured sigh of relief, decided that it wasn't lethal or even significant enough to be treated immediately. The panic attack Will was going into was much more destructive and could cause permanent damage.

'You understood the mechanics of our joining but you still tried to exact your revenge this way. Why?' Asked Hannibal in the hushed detached tone as Will pressed harder to his back and scented him automatically. Alpha took just one sniff of biting wrath that boiled under omega skin and started patting his sides and stomach until he felt the handle of the knife. Hannibal hissed at the touch and growled which made Will only curl more around omega as he banged the side of his head against the floor. His senses were overwhelmed with the self-inflicted mental trauma that now made him so much more desperate for his mate than ever before. It was like he was burning inside out, like a tree struck by lightning that slowly was losing its core, leaving only a hollow shell.

He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes hard to focus on the answer, which would save him his life or make him lose it. The question was if he wanted the former or the latter.

'I had to know.' His voice was strained and was just a whisper but Hannibal heard it with such clarity that anger rose in him again. 

'Now you know.' Omega almost spat and started to extract himself from the vice of Will's embrace but alpha only held tighter, curling his fingers in Hannibal's clothes. He wrestled a bit with trembling arms but in the end, only turned around slowly in the hold, the mind of his wound. He looked at his mate and sighed inwardly at the painting he presented. He was a trembling mess of tortured steel gaze, sweat and blood. He looked worse than Hannibal felt with all his injuries and fury and sense of deception still in place. He shut it down for now and allowed his inner omega to take care of the distressed alpha. The natural instinct to mellow enraged mate when being susceptible. If it wasn't for this omega would probably protect himself. He had to be patient, there was too much to lose by being too hasty.

He carded his long fingers, still clad in gloves, through unruly curls and caressed Will's cheek to which his bonded breathed unevenly and nuzzled into the delicate touch. His gaze was still full of misery but there was a glint to it. Espionage into Hannibal's very soul.

'Are you going to punish me now?' The voice more steady, Will's question tingled his curious side and made him smile omnivorously. 

'Why do you think I would do that to you, dear Will?'

'Because I understand you.' He averted his gaze from the dried-blood coloured eyes that observed him with the intent of the predator looking at its target. Prey aware of it but not able to run from the beast. He licked his bottom lip and Hannibal's gaze immediately went to the chapped slim lips. 'At least more than I did before I saw what hid under the mask of humanity.'

Hannibal leaned in, his hands circling Will's head, one holding onto the nape, the other the head by the hair. Will's body stiffened for a second like a deer caught in the headlights and then relaxed, melting into the hold like butter. He exhibited his neck, where the bite was and closed his eyes breathing raggedly. The tendons flexed deliciously and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed the influx of saliva. Waiting for his torturous punishment or maybe the sweet embrace of death. But instead of cracking his neck or biting his throat out, Hannibal nuzzled into his gland and took deep breaths, filling his nostrils, mouth, lungs with alpha scent. He tasted it with his palate, the acrid taste of illness made him want to retch. He brought them closer, legs tangling on the cement floor, quivering pulse to his tongue, tasting the adrenaline. Will held onto omega and with all his being wanted Hannibal to do anything else but this. This intimacy, this forgiveness and warmth, when exposed to his rage was melting his forts. He was breaking apart again. He wanted to scream, cry, tear something apart.

Instead, the welcoming scent of home coming from omega made him bury his face into Hannibal's chest. Taking lungful after lungful of scent, taking the edge off but not quelching it. His body still shook and the pain singed in each cell of his flesh. He couldn't even move if it wasn't to get nearer his mate. Hannibal caressed his shivering body and made shushing sounds every time Will whimpered. He felt like he was being split open. His chest opening itself to swallow omega raw, with brutal want and inextinguishable hunger. He could almost feel the antlers growing from his back, goring through the muscles, organs, bones and his very soul to shoot through his skin. But instead of growing up and up, they were expanding, enclosing him and his True Mate.

They created the cage around them, the realisation came to Will with horror.

'You are hurting me, Hannibal' Will gasped, kneading the soft fabric of the shirt in his bloodied hands, feeling the heat radiating from omega's skin like from a furnace. His nails were not sharp enough to tear the expensive fabric to get to soft bronze skin.

'As you are me, Will.' His gloved hands left Will's skin for a moment making alpha skin prickle with anguish and then they came back but this time touching skin to skin. The doctor took the collar of Will's T-shirt and pushed it aside to latch on the mating bite with his lips, sucking it and licking. Will's breathing stuttered and accelerated, and then made him moan as he looked for Hannibal's bite mark with his nose. He shuffled even closer, keeping in mind the knife handle this time, and pushed his weight on the doctor's upper chest who in turn pushed Will on his back to blanket him as he nibbled on the mark. With a more comfortable position Will bit the gland delicately, taking to holding the skin in his mouth as he changed the pressure of his teeth on it. Hannibal's own breath cached and his sucking halted for a second and he pegged away at making Will break as much as possible. He bit hard when Will's cold hand found its way to his neck. The threat was evident in the sharp teeth that worried a skin as the offending hand went to his lower back.

'Why couldn't you let me go?' Asked Will breathing the moist hot air into an omega ear that made him shiver.

'Why couldn't you?' Answered Hannibal in turn, heaving onto his hands from forearms to look at alpha under him. Will scoffed and grimaced.

'You know why!' There's a bit of venom to it but not as much as Will had liked to put in it.

'And so do you, dear boy.' Said Hannibal and Will's vision took on this panicky state again. Flying from point to point, not staying in one place for longer than a second. He would run again if he could but now under the oscillations of his stability, that came to life by his own doing and omega's perfectly warm body, he could not.

'I know. Because I feel it too. Burning in my chest, eating my mind away so there is nothing left.' The secret erupted from Will's lips like a stream under pressure from between the rocks. Hannibal blinked once, slowly, then again. 'Not because we are bonded but because of what you ignited in me. You woke the slumbering hell and now you had to pay for it. You should burn in that hell for everyone you killed and manipulated. For Abigail, Miriam, Jack, Alana and Beverly. And probably a hundred others.' The conviction as he said it sounded almost rehearsed, like something that he told himself in hours of doubt. And it was probably true, mussed Hannibal observing the myriad of emotions playing on his bonded face. 'And for lying to me...' 

The last part was just a murmur but their faces were so close the doctor still heard it and it struck him how much Will fell in their friendship. He knew that the profiler depended on him, trusted him but he didn't expect to make him be reborn through the breaking process and still possess those feelings. This constant need, that he felt himself. They truly were the two sides of the same coin. He felt like a little sun warmed him from inside out. The feelings that burned him alive in the wee hours full of contemplation were now directed at him. At least the distorted version of them. But he would change that, it wouldn't come with ease but it was possible. And that was enough for now.

Hannibal sighed deeply and brought his forehead to Will's, their noses brushing with intimate tenderness. Will still had this agitated feel to him but Hannibal could understand that. The feeling won't leave the alpha for weeks for what he tried to execute.

'You know what I crave.' Purred omega with the deepest and the most mesmerizing voice Will ever heard him use. His mind swam into its direction, pleading for more sustenance.'And you know what you yearn...'

'Nonononono, I don't.' The protest was weak and thin so Hannibal didn't pay it mind.

'You yearn for the same thing I do, my sweet Alpha.' The seductive mutter made Will's taut like a string, almost nearing snapping in half. It was the first time when Hannibal called him that outside the heat. The title made his brain boil in his skull and his guts to wring itself out.'Why won't you allow yourself this Will? If I'm the Devil and you are my free will and my cage of the ninth circle of the inferno, then we complement each other too well, even for you, to deny.'

'And so you are the master of your cage and will?' Huffed Will 'Where's my opinion on it? My identity?! Me?!' He was almost screaming and even with his stability plummeting with each second he flipped Hannibal on his back to seethe into his face. Even the grumble of pain that the doctor made couldn't stop his overbearing anger 'You want me to become like you?! To lose sanity and moral code for a sense of belonging?!' His voice cracked at the last word. He couldn't stop the flow of tears that started to leak from his red-rimmed eyes. 'For a safe, warm place I never had but found in you? A place that was only a scene you created for your puppets...for me... You know me better than I know myself, and I know you better than anyone else ever will. We see each other, it's almost like looking into a mirror but you must realize that this is not a tale with a happy ending. Not for a monster like us...We are fated to devour each other.'

Ragged puffs of air were leaving his mouth as he bared his fangs at omega who looked at him with such awe and worship that the profiler had to avert his gaze again hastily. Hannibal's face was almost motionless, only for the eyes that screamed of promises of devotion so fierce it would cut the world in half and ravished red lips half-open in amazement. Too much, too fast of those emotions were crawling into his system, owing to his overdeveloped empathy, making his already congested neurons catch on livid fire that burned the rest of his walls. He sobbed as decisive hands pushed his head down to omega's throat so strong arms could circle his rippling shoulders.

'Shh, my Will, my Alpha.' Whispered the doctor into his ear as he mapped with his hands each and every pearl that was Will's vertebrae. He kissed the curls and then alpha's forehead. Delicate touches of lips to sweaty skin went next to the closed eyelids and the tears that poured from beneath them. He tasted them with the reverence they were worth. And they were worthy so much, salty and fresh and so full of contradicting emotions that should not be possible for anyone to hold onto. He went down to profilers cheeks, cheekbones and ears and then to the lips which opened like a shy flower on a cloudy day. He licked into them tentatively and Will took hold of his tongue energetically, making Hannibal moan and suddenly Will's hands were near his throat again. He instinctively stiffened at the threat but Will didn't take them away. Contrary, he skimmed with his calloused fingertips the places where bruises and cuts were.

'I want to kill you with my hands. I want to taste your blood on my tongue again as I squeeze the life out of you.' Whispered Will into his lips and then plunged forward to savour every nook and cranny of omega's mouth. The admission didn't crush the heat between the kisses, opposite, it made it more fierce, consuming to the point they had to halt to inhale and exhale frantically a few times. The air exchanged between their lips is not enough even for their hormone-addled brains. All pain was ignored in presence of pleasure from the connection between their bodies.

'And I want to eat your mind raw. I want to open your ribs and bury myself in a cavity there, feed on your flesh and make a nest in its place. I dream of coiling around every cell of your body, embedding in it and making you mine.' Growled Hannibal and shoved at Will's chest to push him on the cool cement floor. Will hissed and curled on himself as the pain still radiated through his flesh. He pinned alpha with his athletic thighs on his waist and hands on Will's forearms. Hannibal felt like his body caught on fire, burning feelings finally allowed to completely surface, showing their savageness. 

'I'm already yours.' Said Will with conviction but his expression took on a sinister touch. 'As you are mine.' Hannibal shivered 'You made sure of this!' He spat. He was still struggling between his ingrained need for normalcy and fitting in, and his true nature. Nature that called to Hannibal since the beginning of their acquaintance. Omega smoothed, plastered to Will's forehead, curls and leaned to lick at his cupid bow and then retread back. Endorphins could elevate the pain for that much. He could feel the warm blood seeping vigorously near the edges of the embedded blade. That much movement even with this minor injury wasn't doing him any good. Hannibal examined the place they were still in and huffed inelegantly, pushing himself to his feet, brushing off as much dirt and dust. His clothes already were ruined, as he noticed caked blood splatters and oil stains ingrained into the fabric. He stood up very slowly but even that made alpha whine and Will started to claw at his slacks. The feeling of being abandoned made Will devolve again into a desperate beast. Hannibal shushed him and caressed any patch of naked skin to bring some coherency to Will's thoughts.

'I need medical attention, Will.' Explained omega in the most soothing way he could manage. The unseeing stormy eyes snapped open in horror at the realisation when one particular memory came to him.

'Hannibal-'whiled alpha and big bitter tears started to run down his cheeks. Doctor inclined his head in surprise and patted Will more energetically to calm him enough so he could finish the sentence. After a few minutes, Will hiccuped and put his hand near the blade. Hannibal gripped his wrist with intent to break it if alpha tried anything but Will's hand was like an overcooked noodle. 'The child-' Alpha whispered in horror and tremor wrecked through him at the memory of doing all this destruction himself. Hannibal only blinked, then blinked again and again and sighed the sigh of exasperated god looking at wars wedged by mortals.

There were many facts that came with those two words of his alpha: the child... He was pregnant and Will ran away because he smelled the change in his scent, which he, himself, couldn't discern. Furthermore, Will tried not only to kill him but also to rob him of their child. He tried to cut out one thing that will make him truly unable to leave Hannibal. Oh, his sweet alpha learned fast. Abigail was a means to manipulation, to create an emotional bond between him and Will. But the biological child of their own? This will destroy any wall of doubt that Will could ever erect between them. The pregnancy will also make Hannibal dependent on Will, on his pheromones and touch and the emotional state he would be in. This could ruin them both. Or...create a whole teacup, once again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo there is a change in plans cause I want to wrap this fic up with 2 more chapters as it seems that there's no need for the complicated story when there's no audience for it. And I'm everything but self-flagellating. That's why I decided that Hanni will be pregnant now and not in the distant future, hope you still like it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late Christmas DRAMA

He looked at the tossing form of his alpha, at the grief that painted his features and hands that were holding his head in the vice, as if he could crack his skull open. The picture wasn't as pleasant as Hannibal expected, the sour smell of anguish making his stomach twist and his teeth grind. What wouldn't make him think twice before their bonding was making his body unravel.

He brushed away curls that stuck to Will's forehead and shushed him until Will would start breathing more slowly. There was no point in saying anything as they said enough. He needed a bit of time for himself to decide on his next move. Then he got up and with a dull ache in his abdomen went into the direction of his car. He always was prepared for any complications when he hunted. He always had his doctor bag there and he could perform basic care to the wound which proved, now, to be much trickier than he expected. It would be a miracle if he didn't miscarry already. The thought made his knees weak and cries from the shed didn't assist him in getting his control back.

As he walked his thoughts couldn't stay away from the life in which fate was unknown. He could forgive many things but he wasn't sure if this. Not as omega at least. His omega raged inside him at the alpha, but at the same time felt distress ebbing his control. Will was his True Mate and even this transgression wouldn't allow them to part. They were one now and for all eternity. Nature dictated that even if the child would be dead, they could produce another one. But there wouldn't be another partner for them. Their biology wouldn't allow them to mate with anyone else and truly, if Hannibal had to be honest with himself, the sentiment wouldn't allow it too. The possessive need and want pulling him to just wrap around Will and roar at anyone or anything that would try to take him away.

He put his hands on his lower belly, where his womb was and near it was the knife, inspecting the wound. A cold dread started to creep up his spine. When he got to the car he noticed something he couldn't believe what was happening: his hands were shaking. His hands didn't shake for many years, since Mischa. The whole thing was unimaginable, he didn't even want his own children to begin with. At least not now. But the thought of losing this cluster of cells made his inner omega whimper and rage so viciously that even Devil had to be afraid of what Hannibal would do. With an iron grip on the handle, he opened the boot and rummaged through it to find the bag. His moves were too frantic and his mind brooded. When he got the bag and all supplies he relaxed a bit as he went through the mindless routine of dealing with another injury on his body. There were many scars already, so another one should mean nothing. But in reality, meant too much.

His thoughts wandered to Will. It had to be noted that Will could be unpredictable and could try to harm him or their child again if it wasn't already dead. He already did something unthinkable for an alpha who got his true mate pregnant. No other person could escape clutches of chemical bonding but Will wasn't like any other person. He would detach himself from who he was or adopt someone's else state of mind.

Hannibal was wondering who he used for such a feat?

For such an act of merciless brutality that was fuelled by desperation?

Did he want Will to be shackled to him with that state of mind? Artificially pliant until he snaps?

Hannibal wasn't sure anymore what he wanted himself. The only thing that was a constant was a want to see Will accept his true self and stand by his side to witness it and drink in all the glory.

It looked like the game only got more complicated as they played. Will lost his bishop and all pawns, as Hannibal lost only a few pawns and a knight. But now he had one more queen to play with, their child. A really strong figure that could decide on the Mat in this game. But it wasn't all, because now Will had him in Shah. It wasn't possible to stop playing, not now. Not when Will was still ravenous for blood, Hannibal's, their child's or even his own. They could all die. Hannibal wasn't afraid of death, he would welcome it with open arms if it meant that it was time. But it wasn't the time. Not for him, nor the cluster of cells in his womb. And especially not for his alpha.

\------------

He feels like someone is slicing him with a scalpel. One fibre at a time. Slowly. Methodically. He shatters into hundred pieces, then to thousand, then million and so on and on, until his body will just be just a mass of cells, and then organelles in puddles of cytoplasm, and after that DNA helixes, nucleotides, molecules and atoms. Just pure atoms, that can be everything. Not like him. He is only one thing now.

A maniac.

The alpha that tried to slice open his omega to get rid of another string his puppeteer attached to his heart. He was weak, no, he is weak. He still wants to rip something apart, if not anyone else then at least himself. The feelings of abhorrence and despair are clogging his mouth and he can't even speak. It feels like he drowns from inside.

He can't even hear his own cries and sobs and only registers them when his cheeks become damp with escaped tears. He can't hold onto them anymore and he only feels worse for that. He feels too much, too much of what he shouldn't and too little of what he should. He hugs himself but not in need of relief or warmth but because there are great expanses of skin he can fly open himself. He rakes his bloodied nails into the sweaty expanses and digs them deeply. He claws at them until he feels the first tickles of his own blood that run down his side.

_Marvellous. Decadent. Perfect._

It feels like control, it feels like purification. He can focus on the pain going through his back instead of the whole-body ache he goes through because of Hannibal. Always because of him.

He can just focus on this. Only on this. He doesn't need to think about his bonded, the child that is probably dead and the other one that Hannibal took away from him. It's only fair. A life for a life. He only hopes that it will hurt Hannibal at least one-tenth of what he is going through right now. He wants to see the world around them burn.

And they should burn with it.

He can taste Chopin's Nocturne in C# minor, Op. 27 on his tongue. Sombre notes are like dark chocolate when the light ones are like carnations petals. Sweet and bitter at the same time.

He can hear how the notes of mulberry purples are sliding against citrus green and crushes into caramel creating the distortion of navy and soil brown.

Under his closed eyelids he sees how everything plays out. Colours dance like in ballet, jumping high to make a split and then crumble into the ball on the floor. They bend and mingle and then he can see something skitter between them. The flash of black which is like a void. Sucking all the colours and flavours and high notes that he can taste.

It just runs in his peripheral vision, the shadow of an animal? A man? Both? He is not sure.

And then it crashes into him from behind. Its antlers piercing his torso and coming out black with tar. It hurts again. His insides churning with dismay at having something in them that shouldn't be there. The tar is hot as hell itself as he takes the antlers in his hands to push them out. Instead of burning him it just peels his skin off, torturously exposing bone-white underneath that has cracks in it. They ooze the sticky liquid that slowly runs down his chest from puncture wounds. It burns everything and he screams because he can't take it anymore.

He tries to claw at the creature behind him, but there's nothing there and so he rips into his wounds deeper still. Until he can feel china underneath. He looks at the antlers that are still logged in his chest and somehow he knows they are his. And with that knowledge, they start to grow. Inside and outside and he breaks down again.

He breaks into two pieces, then four, eight, sixteen and so on and so on until he is china-dust. It's peaceful existence, but only for a second because now the tar starts to seep again from each piece and he is built anew.

And now the pain on his rebirth isn't that easy to be distracted from. The wounds on his back are not enough anymore and so he bites his lips hard until he can taste copper and feels a flood of relief. But it's short and now he needs something more. He can't move, more like writhe and tremble so he starts banging his forehead on the ground. The pieces are stronger than they were before and instead of bone china, his skin is obsidian-black with small flecks of white from china-dust.

But the process stops and so he bangs his head harder. It hurts and he can feel the way his brain surges forward and back as he hits his forehead harder and harder. It's not as pleasant as clawing or biting, his cerebellum is weak and _so fragile_ and hates the treatment Will subjects it to but he can't stop. He hits, again and again, his neck is hurting with each impact and with the final swing, he hears a crack and only then he notices that there's blood on his face, not a black pair of antlers that he felt growing with each strike. It slowly drips from the lacerations on his forehead but he can't even inspect it with his senses because at this moment he loses every thought and goes under.

The soft blanket of darkness tucking his mind to sleep. It feels like peace, peace at last.

The monster of hardened tar and china-dust standing in his place. It's ribcage wide open and empty. For now.

\------

The operation was swift and painful but the injury was not severe in any way and only needed 3 stitches. When Hannibal comes back he sees a wreck of the alpha. Will's shirt is bloodied but it doesn't alarm him as much as the pool of blood around his head. He doesn't see his face but it's obvious that his mate lost consciousness as his body is limp like a rag doll, the only indication he is alive is the small rise and fall of his ribcage. He can feel the bubbling need to whine in his lungs and stomach but he swallows it.

He was prepared for this. He knew Will could go this path if he was cornered but he didn't expect to come so soon. And in such a torturous way to his own psyche. The omega inside his brain is screeching and clawing at the borders of his Mind Palace for his alpha. And instead of curling in a small ball of misery, it wreaks _havoc_ in Hannibal's body.

It trashes against the walls, ripping apart the tapestries of his childhood memories. The paintings of his time in France and Italy are being burned down and smoke clogs the entirety of his Mind Palace. So he runs away from it, looking at the rooms that tongues of a fire escape from. And at the balcony of the highest tower where the omega stands. Like a king, looking at Hannibal as if he was a peasant, unworthy of the riches of the palace that shined like a torch in the darkness of his skull. And so Hannibal kneels before the omega who is burning with the palace and cries in the ecstasy of it.

His body is burning. The spike of adrenaline and cortisol makes his heartbeat stutter and speed up to the point he suspects that he is having a mild heart arrest. He can hear the beat of his heart in the tips of his fingers and hear it in his ears. His knees give out under him as he grasps his pectoral where his heart is trying to rip out of his chest. His breathing changes from raged to hyperventilation and tears start to form in the corners of his eyes.

Everything throbs and morphs.

The image of his alpha, laying in the pool of his life essence is starting to lose focus. Hannibal can feel the beginning of the headache and nausea and with the last of his strength crawls to Will and collapses on him. He hugs the hot flesh to his body, eating away the excess of Will's heat that his body provides as his body goes into shock. The smell of blood instead of making his mouth water, is making him gag and so he decides to breathe through his mouth as he nuzzles Will.

Unmoving Will.

Will who tried to run away again. And again. And again.

Will run from his fate too many times.

He would never let him leave him again.

Will was part of him, as he was part of Will.

Alpha and Omega.

Forever, till fate decides it's their time.

But till then, Will was _his. His.HIS!_

And the time for them to die wasn't now.

His heart doesn't slow down but his mind is clear. Darkness encompassing it as the flicker of light runs through it. His focus on one thing- _bring alpha to a safe place_ , to their den. And care for him, lick his wounds and bring him back to his omega. There was no thought or plan, just pure instinct commanding his body.

He nuzzles the slowly cooling body and whimpers and snarls in frustration. He licks at the wound on Alpha's forehead and then on his back. Cleaning the offending ridges in soft skin. But pure omega instinct isn't enough to wake up his mate, it accesses his knowledge that still burns brightly.

The answers come like a slam to the stomach and his body moves without thought, checking for the pulse, injuries and pupil responses. It looks worse than it is though it doesn't mean his alpha isn't in danger. The images from another life come alive before his eyes: infections and suffering, sepsis and slow death, things in medical beds that ate and were breathing but were not alive.

A rumble of anger starts in his stomach and goes up to the diaphragm, oesophagus, larynx, trachea and vocal cords to erupt from his mouth. He stands up, his body trembling like a leaf on the wind as massive amounts of adrenaline courses through his bloodstream, fueling the instinct to shield his mate. He heaves Will into his strong embrace, princess carry, and feels as two stitches pop under the pressure but he pays it no mind. With only one goal in mind, he puts his bonded in the backseat as delicately as he can and covers alpha with his coat. He brushes the sweaty curls from his forehead and nuzzles it, chirruping to soothe his unconscious mate.

_' I will take care of you.'_ The soft sound says _'You are safe now. With me.'_ He scents the mating gland that is exposed and his nose scrunchies in the disturbance. The smell is wrong. The soil, blood and musk that should be there now have an addition of minerals to it, a bit salty but clean, like licking a stone wall. There is also spiciness too but omega can't place it. It wasn't something he ever tasted or smelled even though it makes something in his stomach clench pleasantly. With a last nuzzle and kiss to the closed eyes, he goes to the driver's seat and flashes of memories as to how to operate the car instruct him to turn on the heat and start the car.

The neverending chant in his mind blazing with the red whips in his psyche:

_Alpha must be safe._

\----------

He wakes up to the smell of apple pie with nutmeg and cinnamon, warm milk with honey and sandalwood. He smiles to himself and purrs in pleasure, salivating at the scent.

He tries to shuffle nearer the source of exacting aroma when he is stopped by something coiling around his whole body. There is something encircling his neck and forehead and there's something around his chest, thigs, ankles and wrists. He tries to move but can just a few centimetres and then soft fabric digs into his skin.

He blinks away the pleasurable scent looking in horror at his body. He can't quite move with the cervical collar around his neck and his forehead strapped to some kind of stand behind his head. But the medical bed he is in is slightly lifted and he can see the white-hospital restraints around his body. The kind of which are used on mental patients. He doesn't even try to tug on it. He knows it has to be secured tightly with how much pressure it puts on the railing of the bed. He looks around the room, expecting to be in the hospital but it's not one. The room looks like the bedroom he spent the last days- and then his eyes snap to Hannibal. Sleeping in the plush chair beside his bed.

A low hum of panic settles in the pit of his stomach. His eyes can't stop drinking his omega in as his rational mind screams at him: YOU ARE FUCKING BOUND TO THE BED BY THE CANNIBAL. His alpha hindbrain shushes the screaming by purring the words _omegatruematepregnantmineminemine._

And so he purrs loudly, unashamedly, as he looks at soft beige sweaters and pyjama pants. Soft gold-brown hair falls across his forehead and smile lines are smoothed out. One hand holds onto the book and the other is on his belly. It looks almost unconsciously placed, though nothing could be unconscious with Hannibal. He can almost taste the warmth and feel the weaves of gold aura radiating from the picture before him. He isn't sure when he saw his omega so soft. Probably when he invited himself in the morning. Dark dressing-gown and open shirt, strong coffee, devious smile and dilated pupils. It feels like a lifetime ago. And it probably is.

The life that is poles apart from the other. And them, disparate to their old selves. Or are they?

Maybe not disparate, maybe just more intense.

He closes his eyes and looks into himself. He can feel the change, like something finally clicking into place. He can't remember everything that happened during the full-blown panic attack his body went into. There are flashes and scenes cut out of the whole film. He remembers confessing, pouring his heart out like a prayer. There was constant pain too and more panic.

He told Hannibal about the child....

Why was he still alive?

He sighs and opens his eyes and dark maroon ones are boring into his.

'Will.' Whispers Hannibal with the coldness that doesn't match his demeanour.

'Han-' croaks Will and winces in pain. His throat is dry and scraped. Hannibal gracefully stands up and leaves the bedroom and Will's gut drops so suddenly he dry-heaves. His lungs take in the air greedily as if the scent that penetrated the bedroom could stop another panic attack. His eyes prickle and he can feel it burn as he closes them. His body is exuding cold sweat and seeps into the silken bed sheets and pyjamas.

And then the delicate touch stops it all.

A dry, warm hand brushes his cheek and forehead and he seeks the touch instinctually, like a flower seeks the Sun. A cold sensation on his lips makes him open his eyes to look into dark pools full of unshed longing and monomania. Will can drown in them. He probably already did.

He opens his lips and sucks on the piece of ice that was pressed to his lips when Hannibal caresses his jaw, neck and then the bite mark that was hot like the little star under his touch. When the ice fully dissolves, Will quickly sucks Hannibal's fingers into his mouth, tasting the salty skin and tangs of herbs that still linger on them after cooking. Hannibal's iris is swallowed by widening pupils and a puff of breath leaves his slightly open lips.

'I see you are parched.' Murmurs Hannibal squeezing the bitemark which makes Will moan around the digits and nip them seductively. That wakes the doctor from his delirium and with reluctance he withdraws fingers from moist heat that licked and sucked on them just a second ago. He brings another chip of ice to Will's lips but takes back his fingers instantly. He goes back to his chair and sits with a slight contraction in his features. 'I'm sure you have many questions and they will be answered in due time but right now all you need to know is that you are taken care of, so please, be a model patient .'

Will licks his lips, still seeking the flavour of omega's skin. He breaths in and out and clears his throat, the pain easing as ice chips were more of syrup-water chips.

'I only have one question which I need an answer now.' Hannibal blinks in surprise and inclines his head for Will to continue. 'Can you lay beside me so I can scent you?' The question is asked as if Will was asking for a pencil instead of a purely intimate act that both of them craved for days.

Hannibal is speechless for a fraction of a second and then a small smile blooms on his lips making something warm slighter through Will's spine. The bed is small and so omega has to drape half of his body across Will's, encompassing him in his arms. He lowers himself to be able to scent Will too and they groan in unison. It was too long for both of them.

Hannibal can't resist the temptation of his bonded exposed throat and licks and sucks at the pale skin. It lost it's golden glow as Will's body recuperated. He tastes the mineral flavour that is even stronger than before and nips at the bite mark. The scar calling his omegan part that now roams his Mind Palace hand in hand with him. He had quite a cleansing to go through when his alpha was unconscious.

Will can't take his nose away from Hannibal's neck. The scent is warmer now, it almost dissolves like a caramel candy on his tongue. When they were both awake it was sharper, spicer, the old sandalwood scalding his taste buds. His mate is happy. And even if he was bound to the bed by the cannibal serial killer he couldn't be more content at this moment. 

Their heartbeats thrum in unisound, strong and unhurried.

There was much that changed and even more of everything had to be discussed between them but right now, Will knows that he filled the vacuum in his ribcage, he just had to close it so Hannibal couldn't run away. As for the doctor, he knows he has to be more assertive in his plans for Will. He will entrap him soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for all the kudos and comments! I'm so happy that so many of you are so interested in this story <3  
> Also, I'm sorry (not really) that this story is just fluff and drama and drama and more drama but they are just like that XD BTW if someone thinks that the last scene is cute I think you need to reevaluate your sanity (as do I, cause I wrote this shit). The guy is freaking strapped to the bed and spoiler! he will stay that way....  
> Merry Christmas everyone who celebrates it and Happy New Year everyone! Let's hope it will be better than this one ^^ Kisses with 10 meters away from each other and masks on!


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